


Screwing Over the Apocalypse

by TheElusiveOllie



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alien gore, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Angst, Anxiety, But it is Not Purely Alternate Universe Fusion Fun, Character Study, Characters Are a Good Deal More Foul-Mouthed Than Usual, Creative Profanity, Drama, Drift Compatibility, Everyone is a Sarcastic Cynical Asshole, F/F, F/M, Gen, Implied Panic Disorder, In Which All Characters Are Woobies But They Are Also Assholes, In Which Too Much Research Was Put Into Worldbuilding, Introspection, It is Investigation on the Characters We Know and Their Interlocking Relationships, Kaiju, Minor Character Death, Multiple Character Relations, POV Multiple, Panic Attacks, Platonic Drift Partners, Platonic Relationships, Posthumous Character, Self-Indulgent Crossovers, Slow Burn, The Concept of Drifting is Analyzed, The Nature of the Drifting Space is Forgivingly Complex, This Fic is Ridiculous in Concept, This Is Not Purely a Shipping Fic, Violence, Who Doesn't Love Giant Robots Punching Giant Aliens in the Face?, canon character death, occasional humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-02-17 19:17:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 62,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2320454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheElusiveOllie/pseuds/TheElusiveOllie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By 2025, the Jaeger Program is on its last legs, with barely enough jaegers for one last push to close the Breach and not enough pilots to fill them. With no other options, the program calls two old Rangers back into service - Nicholas Gold and Emma Swan, the latter whom has never actually piloted a jaeger and the former who had the honor of piloting the first one to fall. And both of them have a whole lot of baggage, courtesy of the death of Neal, Gold's son/drift partner and Emma's significant other, ten years earlier. They're both tasked with finding co-pilots before the world meets an unfortunate, painful, watery death. So, you know, no pressure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the longest, most complicated, most self-indulgent, and without a doubt the stupidest fic I've ever written but it seized at me and wouldn't let go for several months. The crossover is weird and this is my first time writing some of these characters in any long-term capacity, so yeah. It's ridiculous, it's self-indulgent, it's an absurd crossover, and it was a whole lot of fun to write. Enjoy.

“Smaller than I expected.”

“What part of ‘they cut our funding’ was unclear, exactly?”

“No, I got it,” Emma adjusted the strap on her bag as she turned a small circle, tilting her head this way and that to catch the full scope of the building’s high ceiling. “Just making an observation.”

Marshal Mills didn’t seem to have a response to that other than to offer a snort of derision as she moved deeper into the facility. After a final sweeping glance at roof of the steeply domed building, Emma followed. The coppery, bitter tang of metal clung to every inch of this place, coating the backs of her throat and nostrils as she sucked in a lungful of the not-at-all-fresh air. The sting of sea and salt was pungent on the back of her tongue when she inhaled again. She released the breath with a thoughtful nod.

So this was the Shatterdome.

\--

_“We’ve been through this once already, remember? We ran the compatibility tests and I got the short end of the stick. No drift partner, no piloting, no jaeger. That’s what you said.”_

_“Times change.”_

_“So do people. That what you’re saying?”_

_Silence. Then:_

_“I heard about the tragedy.”_

_“Which one? I gotta real choose-your-own-adventure of those. It’s great. It’s a ball.”_

_“You know the one. I wanted to express my condolences for the loss of - ”_

_“Save it. It was ten years ago. I’m over it.”_

_Pause._

_“Actually, you know what? Tell it to the poor man’s_ father. _He was still in the cockpit with him when it happened, wasn’t he? What, you let him go too when he didn’t want to risk opening up his head to someone else?”_

_“That’s not the - listen, I know you two were...involved.”_

_“Yeah, well, that happens. People get involved. And then they don’t. And on that note, I’m not really seeing any reason I should go back to be humiliated again, so if you’ll excuse me - ”_

_“Hold it, Swan. You haven’t even heard my proposal.”_

_“I don’t need to.”_

_“I think you might want to.”_

_“Do I really, now?_ Really? _And why’s that?”_

\--

_“How’d you like a place in the Jaeger Program, Miss Swan?”_

Ten years ago, she had leaped at the opportunity and gotten badly burned for the reckless enthusiasm. Now trudging through the labyrinth of rust-steel hallways just felt like a cheap rehash of the thrill and awe that had spun through eighteen-year-old rookie Emma Swan like the best adrenaline high in the world.

Like Marshal Mills said: people change.

Kind of a _lot._

The worst part was, by far, navigating the mess hall. Emma did her best to keep her eyes on Mills’ short black hair, but she found her gaze drifting within seconds of entering the room. There wasn’t any point bothering in pretending otherwise. But really, come on, she was standing in the presence of the last three jaeger crews in existence. They wouldn’t object to a peek, surely. It wasn’t like she was _staring._ Besides, she was just some rook, strolling by. They’d probably gotten all sorts of stares and attention before. Would it _really_ make any difference to them?

Apparently the answer to this was _yes, actually, it would make a very goddamn big difference_ if one happened to obviously be new at all this, so when she chanced a tiny glance in the direction of the couple that comprised the team of the Sentinel Fury, it was kind of a bit of a _massive shock_ to find them _staring back._

Emma quickly swiveled her gaze down to the floor, focusing instead on the pristine _click_ of Mills’ heels across the corroded metal floors of the last active Shatterdome, stationed in Los Angeles. Sure, it was barely audible over the rumble of conversation, the hisses and groans of metal debris being shifted all about the place, but she needed a _distraction,_ damnit, and didn’t much want to pick up a poor reputation of the ogling rookie before she’d even begun her first day. She’d gotten enough of _that_ ten years ago, thanks very much.

\-- 

_“I thought you said I’d be reporting here to meet my co-pilot.”_

_“I did. And it, well, it didn’t work out.”_

_“What?”_

_“Look, the fact of the matter is that you only had a possibility for drift compatibility with one Ranger, and he’s already part of his own crew.”_

_“What, you mean Neal?"_

_“I didn’t say that.”_

_“It’s Neal, isn’t it?”_

_“Look, Swan, we’re grateful to have had you for the compatibility trials. But there isn’t anyone here that can - ”_

_“What? Anyone here that can what?”_

_“The important thing is that there’s no one here for you, Swan. You close yourself off, refuse to open up. That’s the sort of thing that gets Rangers killed. You’re too caught up in yourself to risk trusting another human being.”_

_“Gee, thanks for the honesty hour. We done here?”_

_“Swan, listen - ”_

_“No. No, you know what? I’m done. You obviously don’t have any need for me here. So much for that ‘unique skill,’ huh?”_

_“Miss Swan - ”_

_“Hey, save it. I don’t need to hear it. I’m outta here.”_

_“If you’ll just - ”_

_“Nope. I’m done. I’m done with all of it.”_

\--

“Your quarters.”

“Well, hey, wouldn’t you know it! They’re small too!”

_“Miss Swan.”_

Emma deposited her bag swiftly, lobbing it into the far corner of the room, and paced the length of it to get the feel down. It felt somehow more spacious than the last room like this she’d stayed at, but then again, her memory of events from ten years back wasn’t the greatest. Except when it came to those Big Moments.

(Not that she particularly enjoyed remembering those.)

(Ah, yes, the unbridled joy of strolling down that little hideaway alley just off Memory Lane.)

“So.” Emma ripped her mind out of the past with ruthless speed to smile far too brightly at the Marshal. “When do we start?”

“Trials will pick up tomorrow.” Mills folded her arms, clearly not impressed by Emma’s unsuccessful attempts to hold up some sort of bravado. “One of my officers has lined up some possible candidates. We begin at 0800 hours sharp.”

“What, no tour?” Emma cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “Feels like I should be getting to know this place a little better, seeing as I’m going to be staying a while.”

It wasn’t quite a challenge and it wasn’t quite a threat, but the tension that skittered out between the words and the silence that followed sure made it feel like it. Mills looked very much like she’d like to take up that not-exactly-a-challenge, but the spark of defiance soon faded into a much more familiar cold disinterest.

“Someone will be along to take you,” she said shortly, and was gone before Emma could drum up another smart-alecky retaliation. There was little else to do but unpack and get settled.

She didn’t have much by the way of belongings. Being essentially homeless could do that to a person. And, well, Emma had almost always kept herself in a near-constant state of movement, hunting down whatever jobs she could manage. Her longest stay had been in Boston, close enough to the coast to pick up work on the new Wall of Life (what a fucking _joke)_ , and of course that was where Mills was able to track her down. Seemed they were desperate enough for jaeger pilots to go combing through their archives for the failures, the dropouts, the rookies, anyone eager enough for glory to be crammed into those big clanking deathtraps and marched to the Breach to lose their lives and limbs and futures to a kaiju hungry for blood.

So they’d come to her. One of the many dead losses they had on hand, doubtless to be dealt out as cannon fodder. Emma’s lip curled in disgust. Nice to know she had still been placed under consideration, at least.

Emma figured many of the pilots and officers at the L.A. Shatterdome had done what they could to make their tiny little rooms feel like homes, putting up all matter of mementos and keepsakes to remind themselves what they were fighting and sacrificing and dying for.

“Home” was such a foreign concept to her. Would it _honestly_ make that much of a difference if she even tried to make this place feel as such?

The rational bit of Emma told her _no, absolutely not, under no circumstances._

The sentimental part of her rummaged through her small pool of belongings until she located the two tiny objects she hadn’t quite been able to bring herself to let go. The dreamcatcher went over her bunk and a single picture was donated to the opposite wall. The tattered photo hung there forlornly, the negative space surrounding it somehow making Emma even more acutely aware of the perpetual state of isolation her life was.

She chose not to dwell. It had been a full day, what with the uprooting of her lack-of-a-life and all, so she opted for sleep instead, hoping it’d be peaceful.

At least just a little.


	2. Chapter 2

Calling up on leftovers and failures and cowards, were they? 

They must be getting _terribly_ desperate.

Gold had never seen the Los Angeles Shatterdome firsthand. He’d been stationed in Anchorage when the kaiju attacks had begun, and he’d been happy to hold the position. At first, anyhow. An impressive kill count and the near-celebrity status that had come with the thrill and danger of the fight had almost been worth the bitingly cold conditions, the early morning rousings at whatever ungodly hour the kaiju had decided to emerge from the Breach, the horrible twisting dread that formed in his gut every time he and Neal suited up for another caper, knowing full well that it could be their last.

And, of course, one day it had been.

Gold shook away the memories and took the opportunity to sneer at himself. He wasn’t anywhere near a jaeger, and still he couldn’t resist chasing the rabbit, could he? “Coward” was the name for him, and they were right. Every time.

\-- 

_“Come on, up and at 'em! We gotta be on deck in twenty.”_

_“Nngh...what time ‘s it?”_

_“Bright ‘n early, 0300 hours. Come on, up!”_

_“What? What’s the occasion?”_

_“Breach activity. There’s an event - codename ‘Razorback.’ They say it’s Category III, first ever!Can you believe it? Now come on, old man! Drop in forty!”_

_“Ah, don’t call me that.”_

\--

Mills didn’t have the time or patience to bring him here herself, it would seem, though the rumors that she was busy escorting a _rookie,_ of all people, here instead certainly set Gold’s teeth on edge. He might be a disappointment and a coward and a washout in every sense of the word, but at least he’d _actually_ served the PPDC, even if that had been ten years ago before his world was sent crumbling.

No, there was no Marshal Mills to greet him when the helicopters came to approach him with the offer of One Last Stand, One Final Surge, and whatever other terms they’d used to make “suicide run” sound like something proud and noble and glorious. Instead he’d gotten one of the PPDC officers and a young one at that, all bright eyes and wide smiles and hopelessly naive as she asked, oh please, if he’d be interested in coming back to the Jaeger Program, wouldn’t he, sir?

(He wanted to tell her to run, flee, hide, go back to whatever wealthy inlanders’ home she’d obviously come from, that the alleged honor promised by a dying program wasn’t worth all the pain that came with it.)

Gold had deeply considered snapping out a brusque _“no, never”_ out of pure spite. His right leg was shot anyway; what use could they possibly have for a hobbled ex-Ranger like him? They couldn’t be _that_ desperate, could they?

Evidently the answer to that was _yes, very._ Eventually Gold had wearily agreed to return, if only so he could at least die in the same cockpit his boy did. That was what they promised him. There’d been the Jaeger Restoration Project, probably kicked up in a futile attempt to revive some of the public hype surrounding the shattered old war heroes. They’d had enough funds - _barely_ \- to resurrect Spindle Gauntlet. The unexpectedly touching gesture had teased Gold to be sympathetic enough to their doomed cause to clamor awkwardly into the helicopter behind the officer, quietly resisting the urge to fumble out apology after apology for his useless leg.

Still, if what they’d told him in the copter ride to the Shatterdome was to be believed, the UN had finally stopped fueling the dying program in favor of the Coastal Wall Project. The funds would be gone in eight months, and now the last five jaegers still standing would be the only ones left. And then there’d be four, then three, and then there’d only be old newspaper articles and dusty action figures and maybe a late night TV-spot celebrating the fallen heroes of the Pacific. Life would continue, at least until the kaiju got to it and finally crushed it dead.

\--

_“Both pilots on deck.”_

_“Good morning to you too, Leroy. Nice day, huh?”_

_“Oh,_ don’t. _I was looking forward to actually sleeping tonight, but no. No, instead I get woken up at_ three in the morning _because_ some kaiju _thought that was just a_ spectacular _time to - ”_

_“Morning, Officer.”_

_“Uh, morning Marshal. We good to drop?”_

_“Engage drop.”_

_“Engaging drop, ma’am. All right, Golden Boys, you heard her - securing Conn-Pod, ready to drop."_

_“Pilots set for drop.”_

_The entire Conn-Pod shuddered and shot down the drop chute._

\--

The L.A. Shatterdome was bigger than Gold’s old station on Anchorage, but, then again, it sort of _had_ to be. It was housing five jaegers all at once, and most Shatterdomes had only held three at the most. Of course, almost all of the old Shatterdomes had likely been turned to scrap or sold to private collectors by now.

“This way,” the officer directed him through the rumbling hive of activity that was central part of the Shatterdome, the eponymous “dome” itself. The sheer number of _people,_ all moving on with their established jobs and their established lives, set Gold’s nerves on edge in seconds. The jaegers were clearly visible a little further down - they were in the _docking bay._

At that realization, he swallowed hard. He was torn between wanting to cast a curious eye in search of Spindle and needing to make himself look as small and unassuming as possible. 

Sadly, it seemed he’d already significantly failed at achieving the latter. He could feel eyes on him, whispers too, and when his eyes darted up for an instant, he was unfortunate enough to catch the stares of two very familiar Rangers, pilots of Aureola Brave. Immediately, Gold’s eyes became downcast and hardened again.

He didn’t know what he’d expected, coming back here after a decade of being off the radar. He was one of the few pilots who’d been dropped from the Corps, complete with the dragging limp to prove it. He’d fought beside some of these jaeger teams in the past. Of course they’d recognize him.

“You all right?” The officer leading him through stopped when she realized Gold was no longer following her.

“Fine,” the other man snapped back, lurching in front of her to prove it. Just a glimpse of the other jaegers had sent an old shiver down him, and he didn’t particularly care to dwell on it.

“We’re beginning trials to find you a co-pilot tomorrow,” the officer offered, hurrying to keep up. “0800 hours.”

“Fine.” Yeah, all right, he was being gruff. What of it?

“Don’t...don’t you want to know where your quarters are?”

“I’ll find them myself.”

The officer looked a shade dejected at this, but not all that surprised. She nodded and tightened her grip on the clipboard she had clasped in front of her, an obvious security blanket.

“Well,” she continued brightly after a horribly quiet minute. “We’re very excited to have you back, Mr. Gold.”

Gold shrugged and instantly regretted it. It wasn’t just his leg that still suffered the long-term effects of the nerve damage and permanent injury - it was a good portion of his entire right side as well. He’d gotten used to the tingle of the scars on his shoulders and side, evidenced by the latticework of circuit burns fanning out from his right hip in a myriad of ugly reds and whites. It was easy to forget they were there.

(It shouldn’t be that easy.)

\--

_“Begin neural handshake in fifteen...fourteen...”_

_“Ready to walk ‘round in my head, Papa?”_

_“Oh, to be eighteen again.”_

_“You know the drill, old man. Age before beauty.”_

_Nick shut his eyes, focused on the drift tugging at the fringes of his mind, and let it pull him in completely. The memories all whorled up together and an instant later his son’s own set of memories joined them._

_\- the unbridled joy of being told, it’s all right, it’s a healthy baby boy, what would you like to name him, sir? -_

_\- graduating from the Jaeger Academy at sixteen, sixteen, can you believe it? -_

_\- his father told him he’d been a burden, always a burden, just before he left him forever -_

_\- andthentherewasEmmaandthingsweregoodgreateven -_

_\- Nealsmotherhadntcomebackthatnight -_

_\- yoursonspracticallyaprodigysirarentyouproud -_

_And then everything snapped into place._

_“Right hemisphere, calibrated. Left hemisphere, calibrated. Neural handshake steady and holding,” Leroy’s staticky voice affirmed what they already knew._

_“Ready, Dad?"_

_If Neal was shaken by their rough entrance into the drift, he didn’t show it. Broad grin, shoulders back, the handshake holding strong. The grin Nick flashed back at him was so utterly_ Neal _that he could feel his son’s glee sparking back at him._

_“You’re in my head. You already know my answer.”_

\--

It took some creative navigation for Gold to find his quarters, but he was reasonably sure he’d gotten the right room once he had.. He huffed out a weary sigh as he sat, rubbing the soreness out of his bad leg. It wasn’t usually that harsh a strain to walk that short a distance, but he’d been trying so hard to make himself walk upright and tall, like he wasn’t the failure they all knew he was. 

He’d been dropped from the Jaeger Program. He’d let his co-pilot die and walked away clean. That was the stuff military disgraces were made of.

Honestly, he had no idea why Marshal Mills had held out hope for him. His mind was even more fragile than his body, stuck as it was on old mind’s eye photographs of his boy before he’d been ripped away.

(The nightmares didn’t help much, either.) 

(In each of them, his boy screamed that it was _your fault, Papa,_ blaming his father for raising him in the cockpit, for how they were always co-pilots before they were family, always, and in each of the nightmares Gold agreed with hollow enthusiasm.)

(His boy was right. No one else had enlisted in the Jaeger Academy so young, even if father and son had done it together.)

(Because look where they were now.)

(Where they weren’t.)

Gold considered putting up some pictures, making the room feel more like a home, but found he couldn’t muster the energy. Instead he curled sideways on his bunk and did his best to drop off to whatever fitful sleep he’d have to endure tonight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that this chapter contains a trigger warning for implied child death. It's only there if you look for it, but I wanted to give fair warning.

They’d been sent on enough suicide runs to know that Marshal Mills _definitely_ had it out for them.

That was the theory, anyway.

Well, Mary’s theory. And, by extension, David’s as well. He couldn’t really help it. He could see why that’d make sense, despite his efforts to more or less get along with everyone.

(His callsign was “Charming” for a reason.)

“You see the rook they brought in?” Lucas slid onto the bench opposite David, glancing not-terribly-surreptitiously over her shoulder. “They _really_ wanna fill that last jaeger, huh?” 

David tried to look noncommittal as he shrugged and took another bite of his food. The stuff they served in the Shatterdome mess wasn’t so bad as everyone liked to say, but he wouldn’t lie - he missed the dinners he and Mary used to make together in their old beach home off the coast of Maine. That home was splinters now, if there was anything left at all, and the houses of their neighbors and friends were doubtless buried in sunken ruins as well. They’d enlisted in the Jaeger Academy not long after, but that hadn’t been the only reason.

_(don’t think, don’t remember the shattered fragments of the cradle you and Mary had built together on a too-bright, too-sunlit morning - )_

_(you and her both woke to the sound of crying - )_

“Oh, come _on,”_ Lucas pressed when David didn’t answer. “They’re turning to rookies and has-beens now. You remember when this Corps _mattered_ , don’t you?”

 _“I_ do,” David said carefully. _“You_ were the last Ranger to join up when the Corps still had funding.”

“Yeah, well, at least Graham and I got a Mark V out of it.” Lucas shot one final look at the rookie as she exited the hall, long tresses of blonde hair swinging carelessly behind her. “We lucked out on that score. But everything else here is just…”

“Yeah.” David nodded. “It’s all changed. I know.”

The two lapsed into silence, only broken when David’s wife and co-pilot joined them.

“Well, you two are just the picture of cheerfulness today,” Mary noted wryly. David unconsciously grasped her hand as she sat beside him, then just as easily fended off a stealthy attempt to steal his roll without looking.

“Oh, you know.” Lucas leaned back, stretching her arms above her head. “Just waxing poetic on the way things used to be.”

“‘Used to be?’ Ruby, you were the last Ranger to be instated into the program before the UN cut us off. I think you joined up a little too late for ‘used to be’s'.”

“See, that’s what _I_ said,” David cut in. “Not like it matters. I know Marshal Mills wants us for that final push, but after that, the program’s finished, and any surviving pilots will be the same.”

“That’s a kind of...bleak way of looking at it.” Mary frowned. “Mills has a plan to close the Breach once and for all. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Yeah, all right.” David waved away the tentative optimism. “But someone’s going to need to carry the big ol' nuclear payload into the Breach, and who do you think she’ll send to pull that off? ‘Cause in all likelihood, they’re not coming back.”

“That’s what we signed on for when we enlisted in the Academy,” argued a new voice. David and Mary glanced up at the approaching figure of Graham Humbert, but Ruby didn’t twitch a muscle, fully aware of her co-pilot as he settled onto the bench beside her. “We knew that going in.”

“We didn’t know that we’d be stationed with a Marshal who has it out for us for whatever reason.” David had no quarrel with Humbert - he was amiable and earnest enough - but he certainly seemed to leap to the defense of Marshal Mills a little too frequently for David’s own comfort.

“She _has_ sent us on an awful lot of missions that we weren’t expected to come back from,” Mary muttered, almost as an afterthought.

“Of course.” Humbert inclined his head. “That’s her _job. Every_ mission we pull off is a potential suicide run. Part of the work. And you know how Mills - ”

“Piloted a jaeger of her own once upon a time, we know.” Humbert’s defenses of Mills always seemed to come back to that, didn’t they? David was less impressed the thirtieth time. “Specter Havoc, Panama. We all know the story.”

“Just saying.” Humbert shrugged. “There’s rhyme and reason to how she works, and you don’t get to position of Marshal without earning it. God knows she hates the beasts enough for it.”

David didn’t have anything to say to that. Neither did Mary. They finished their meal in silence and began making their way back to their jaeger in the docking bay.

“David,” he heard Mary say sharply and his head jerked up. He followed her stare to watch an eerily familiar man limping his way after another officer, head down and shoulders slightly hunched, slightly straggled gray-brown hair curtaining off his face. He seemed determined to avoid attention, but it was already too late for that. He chanced a quick peek up and almost immediately met the eyes of David Nolan and Mary Blanchard, pilots of the Aureola Brave.

“That’s _Gold!”_ Mary hissed in David’s ear, but he didn’t need her confirmation to tell him that. “What’s he _doing_ here?”

“Ruby did say they were calling back old leftovers.” David did his best to ignore the coldness that had begun to seep into his chest. “Looks like she wasn’t lying.”

“But he - I mean - that was _years_ ago! They couldn’t find any other Mark II pilots?”

“I’m guessing he’s the only one left.” He tried to put of the air of someone who didn’t care very much, but Mary’s hand found her way to his and gave him a gentle squeeze to let him know his efforts had fallen flat and that that was all right.

At the commotion, Gold stopped, but only to be questioned by the officer he was supposed to be following. He snapped something at her and hobbled out of the docking bay without another word to anyone.

Mary recognized Gold’s officer and waved her over. “Izzy!”

Isabelle French was an aspiring Ranger with an impressively high kill count in the simulator, but it seemed she wouldn’t ever get the chance to deploy those skills for real, not with eight months’ maximum left of funding in the Jaeger Program and only enough resources for one last stand against the oncoming monsters from the Breach. Still, Izzy had made it as high as officer and essentially served as Mills’ preferred right hand. She was honest and friendly, and paired with Mary’s eagerness to make friends with everyone, the two had naturally hit it off pretty much immediately.

“So that was really...?” Mary asked in a theatrical whisper as soon as Izzy was in earshot.

“Nicholas Gold, former pilot of Spindle Gauntlet,” the officer listed perfectly, but she couldn’t quite conceal the hurt and bewilderment nestled in those blue eyes. “Yes, that was him.”

“And you had to be his tour guide?” David shook his head. “Allow me to express my deepest apologies.”

“He’s not so bad, really,” she protested. “I don’t think he wanted to come back here. Can you blame him?”

“Yes,” David said without a tinge of irony.

“He lost his _son_ in one of those things and now they’re asking him to do it all over again.” Izzy seemed surprisingly bent on defending the ex-Ranger. “Risk opening himself up again. I’d be bitter, too.”

“Bitter? You?” David raised an eyebrow. “I can’t see it.”

Izzy laughed at that, but at a summons from Marshal Mills, she was forced to take her leave.

“We’re starting drift compatibility trials tomorrow morning,” the officer called as she headed out. “I’m sure everyone will be there to watch.”

“That’d be a thing to see,” David muttered. “An ex-pilot and a rookie. Wonder who’ll flop first?” 

_“David!”_ Mary sounded scandalized. “I get that Neal was your friend - ”

“Not just that,” her co-pilot ground out. “He was _eighteen._ Barely starting out.”

“And that was ten years ago. Besides, we need everyone we can get in this war, especially if this is really the end.”

“I never said we didn’t. I just hope Gold doesn’t expect a warm welcome.”

Mary rolled her eyes at that but said nothing to refute the statement. David knew there was a part of her that couldn’t help but agree, and as much as she would doubtless try to put on an appearance of friendliness to the man, that wariness would always be lurking there.

After all.

Neal had been her friend, too.


	4. Chapter 4

Aurora Sanders might not look much like Ranger material, but anyone who implied otherwise would immediately clam up after seeing Sentinel Fury in action. The initial surprise after witnessing her and her partner’s tactical genius would always transform into genuine respect soon after. True, Aurora didn’t really look the part, all pale brown hair tumbling past her shoulders and delicate blue eyes, but anyone who knew her even casually could say that seemingly demure appearance masked a sharp tongue and a fierce loyalty to her partner and the PPDC. Her looks had earned her her callsign - “Princess” - that was fully intended to serve as a demeaning jibe.

Instead, Aurora took it and _owned_ it.

Her co-pilot and partner in every respect, Lian, looked much more the Ranger. The two of them were often told they made an odd-looking pair but that did little to deter them. They practically lived in the neural headspace of the Drift, in the paradox of the calm and the storm, serene in each other’s minds while the metal vehicle melding their brains into one pounded back the sea beasts from below. They had a record eight kills under their belts, and would have gladly stayed at their station, the Tokyo Shatterdome, until the kaiju went down or they did. But then the UN severed the funding, and the money would be dry by eight months, and the world’s last jaegers were recalled to the L.A. Shatterdome for Marshal Mills’ planned final stand.

(No, neither Aurora nor Lian were very optimistic about the outcome of Mills’ plan.)

(But they were ready.)

“I hear it’ll be less than a week before the next event."

Lian looked up from running a palm over Sentinel Fury’s foot plating.

“Category V?”

“It’s what the scientists say.”

Lian nodded and gave Sentinel’s foot one final pat before turning to face her partner fully.

“We’ll do what we always do,” Aurora offered. “You know. When it comes. We’ll beat it down. We’ll win.”

Her fellow pilot didn’t look to be listening, but they both knew she was. Her eyes reached Aurora’s fully with a small, taut smile.

“Yeah.”

“Besides, the scientist teams have been wrong plenty of times before,” Aurora made a way too obvious attempt to be positive. “They’ve said it themselves, how the kaiju are pretty much unpredictable and, you know.”

Another nod. Somehow Lian didn’t look convinced, and Aurora found that she really couldn’t blame her. They ghost drifted pretty strong when they weren’t in the cockpit of a jaeger, and lying between pilots was always exceptionally difficult. Aurora and Lian were in a near-constant state of living in each others’ heads - which, normally, they wouldn’t mind so much, except that it made even telling white lies virtually impossible.

Lian said nothing of this. She didn’t say much of anything aside from, “Hungry?”

Laconic as always.

“Sure.”

There was a bit of a fuss kicking up in the mess hall by the time they arrived. It seemed Mills had brought something of a rookie into Shatterdome in hopes of filling the last unpiloted jaeger.

Lian nudged her co-pilot and pointed. “There.”

Blonde, roughly the same age as Aurora, and trailing after the good Marshal with the look of a caged animal. Aurora wondered idly if she’d prove any good in the field and why she’d never advanced to Ranger, but the musings ceased abruptly when she locked eyes with the newcomer.

There was fear there, definitely, almost overpowering the blend of vigilance and distrust. Aurora would have liked to get a more precise reading on Shatterdome’s newest, but the stranger quickly broke eye contact and transferred her stare to the floor. Suddenly the backs of the Marshal’s heels were far more interesting than the jaeger team standing to the side, looking on.

“It’s a good thing we’re so incredibly focused here,” Aurora observed loudly once the rook was out of sight. “I can really see the razor-sharp concentration at work.”

Aside from attracting a few glares, there was no distinct response to her comment other than for the area to gradually return to its recognizable routine. Aurora settled down at one of the long mess hall tables to prove that none of the hostility had even remotely bothered her. Lian soon returned with a tray of the food of middling quality they had at Shatterdome. The two of them picked at it without much enthusiasm. 

Life had never been _stable,_ not really. Not since the first kaiju made land on the coast of San Francisco in 2005. But in the Jaeger Program, all the Rangers had found some level of comfort and security in routine, even if that routine involved waking up before the sun had even dared peek over the horizon so they could strap into the cockpits of giant robots and beat the stuffing out of some big alien monsters.

Now, that routine had been disrupted. The Shatterdome was overcrowded and underfunded, packed with the odds and ends of whoever hadn’t quit or died by the time the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps had been formed in the first place. Now they were calling for help from anyone they could reach, and that sort of desperation on the part of the PPDC’s remnants shook Aurora to her core. It was just another sign of how low they’d sunk and how much farther they had to fall.

The Coastal Wall was a joke. The Jaeger Program was the last line of defense for humanity, and now they were running on fumes.


	5. Chapter 5

Emma was roused by a knock at the door. She was awake and upright in seconds - a light sleeper by habit - and had the door itself open in less than a minute.

A young woman, doubtless one of Mills’ officers if the uniform was anything to go by, stood just outside her room, fist hovering to knock a second time before the door flew open.

“Emma Swan?” the officer prompted.

“Mm.”

“You’re to report at the Kwoon in thirty. Would you like help finding it?”

Emma hesitated, torn between wanting to prove to everyone else that she was fully capable of taking care of herself, thank you very much, and wanting to actually arrive at the compatibility trials on time. Common sense won out this round. She gave the officer a curt nod and closed the door again.

Five minutes later Emma opened the door a second time, holding it one-handed as she wrestled a white tank top over her head with the other. She stopped in the hallway to tug her boot a little more firmly into place, then set out after the officer. She had a clipboard in hand, and a quick peek confirmed that it held a list of names and markings.

This was the officer who’d be running the trials, then. Doubtless the names listed were all the drift compatible individuals they had left who weren’t already dead or in jaegers. Emma suppressed a nervous gulp. She never did test well.

“What do you remember about the Academy training?” the officer asked _completely_ out of the blue, taking Emma off guard.

“Huh?”

“I know it’s been a while.” She sounded oddly apologetic. “I was just curious.”

“Um. I don’t know.” Emma unconsciously rubbed the back of her neck. “I mean, it was kind of...you know, _ten years ago,_ and - ”

“It’s fine.” The officer shook her head. “Forget I said anything.”

Emma watched her for a minute, curious. “Your accent,” she said finally. “Australian, right?”

The officer’s look was one of surprise, then a shy smile twitched in the corner of her mouth as she nodded. 

“I was stationed in Sydney,” she explained. “One of the last graduating classes in the Jaeger Academy before it closed. I was hoping to be a Ranger, but I, ah.” Her eyes dropped to the floor. “It doesn’t look like my chances are very high.”

“What, you don’t have drift compatibility?” Emma snorted, half to herself. “Tell me about it.”

“N-no, I, I _do,_ but I don’t think the Marshal wants me in the field.”

Emma’s brow furrowed. “No? Why’s that?”

The officer only provided a half-shrug in reply. Then she stuck out her hand.

“Isabelle. Er, Izzy. Is my name.”

Emma shook it, and her smile didn’t feel as forced as usual.

“Emma. But you already knew that.”

“Sort of my job,” Izzy joked. “Are you ready to meet your co-pilot?”

 _“Maybe_ -co-pilot,” Emma amended. “I’m just another player in the arena. So long as Mills gets her drift compatible little soldiers, she’ll be happy just the same. Or, not happy, maybe. I don’t know. Can that woman actually smile?”

“If we had a pair of drift compatible pilots in the potential Rangers we have on hand, they’d have been put in the field by now. You’re the unknown variable.” Izzy’s tone grew uncomfortably serious. “A lot depends on you.”

“Hey, thanks! That’s _exactly_ a thing you should say to a person just before they get a performance review!”

Izzy fell silent. That served Emma just fine. The hesitant friendliness they’d just voiced had all but dissolved into stiff tension, but maybe that was just Emma projecting her own jittery nerves all over the place.

Yeah. It _definitely_ could be that.

“Ready to engage your drift partner, Miss Swan?” Mills asked as Emma entered the Combat Room. There was a ghost of a smirk hiding there, Emma could just _tell,_ but she responded only by holding out a hand for one of the combat staffs. Izzy passed it to her. The wood was smooth, perfectly polished, and Emma weighed her grip on it for a second before performing an experimental twirl. 

“How much combat training do you remember?” demanded Mills.

“Not nearly as much as I should,” Emma admitted.

“Can you be more specific?” That was _absolutely_ annoyance tinting her words.

“Look, Marshal. It’s been ten years. At this point, all I got to go off of is muscle memory.”

Mills sighed and massaged the bridge of her nose with a pinched thumb and forefinger.

“Fine. Miss French, do try and keep the trials balanced?”

“I’ll do my best,” Izzy said doubtfully. “But this is just the first round, and - ”

“Yes, I’m well aware,” snapped Mills. “Let’s begin.”

“Four strikes marks a win.” Emma didn’t need Izzy to explain it. She knew well enough how these things worked.

The trial with the first candidate was a flurry of wood clacking against wood, whooshes of near-misses, and Emma soon found herself flat on her back staring down the end of her opponent’s combat staff.

“Four-zero.” Izzy’s voice rang clear over both their panting. Emma was astonished, bewildered, breath knocked out of her, and...and her opponent hadn’t even broken a sweat. He helped her to her feet with a contrite hand, bowed to her and the Marshal both, and left the ring.

She fared no better in the second trial. By the third, Emma had a number of bruises to go with the humiliation of defeat, even if the matches were built around avoiding serious injury. 

(Her opponent that round, a tiny slip of a woman with the callsign “Nova,” had apologized profusely for her finishing move that had ended up pitching Emma headfirst onto the ground and left her with a throbbing lump on her skull. Emma had barely even registered the veritable torrent of “sorry, sorry!”, as she was too busy marveling over how such a small person _should not_ by all rights pack that hard a punch.)

By the fourth call of “four-zero,” Emma concluded that her muscle memory _sucked._

By the fifth, Emma had begun to fight with a wildness bordering on panic. She recalled bits and pieces of training, snippets of lessons in Muay Thai, fencing, Krav Maga. Her tactics were haphazard and hopelessly scattered as a result, and therefore easily defensible. The utter randomness of her attacks gave her a tiny advantage in their unpredictability, but they were always quickly overridden by her adversaries’ skill. Even for the short average time for compatibility trials, Emma’s matches were all pitifully short and they all ended the same way; four-zero, Emma felled with apparent ease, the frown line on Mills’ brow growing steadily darker with disappointment and rage. 

By the sixth lackluster performance, it had become clear to everyone involved that this wasn’t just bad luck or an off day, but a definitive _pattern._

“I’m really no good at this, huh?” Emma remarked to the ceiling, unable to muster the energy to get up to go another round. What would be the _point?_ She’d just end up floored yet again, and it seemed such a hassle when she was really quite comfortable where she was. 

“Maybe…” Izzy shot her Marshal a sidelong glance. “Maybe she should take some rounds in the training area before we resume?”

“This _has_ to be some kind of joke,” grunted Emma’s opponent for the sixth round. Emma did her best to ignore him - him _and_ the twinge of frustration that made her skin prickle - as she used the butt of her staff to reluctantly lever herself back to her feet.

“I’ve been outta here ten years,” Emma reminded the Marshal and, by extension, _everyone else._ “Guess nothing really sticks for that long. A memory refresher would be nice - ” 

“Fine.” The word was spat out in a derisive huff. Mills turned to Izzy. “Line up the candidates for our other pilot. We’ll have to change the schedule.”

Izzy hastened to obey, leaving Emma standing alone in the ring with a wooden stick slack in her hand. She watched the crowd of candidates, a mix of Rangers she’d already faced up against and lost to and those that hadn’t even had the chance to beat her to the ground, shuffle off with murmurs of dissent. They must not have been any happier with the trials than she was.

Well, at least everyone looked to have that in common. Emma turned to the Marshal, who appeared to be engaged in fierce discussion with Izzy. She would have gladly left them to it, only she didn’t exactly know where she was supposed to be going if they’d called her trials early. Not the type to cough politely for attention, Emma simply strode out of the ring and up to the good Marshal herself.

“So, what?” she interrupted whatever argument the two were having. “Back to square one?”

“With respect, Miss Swan, we thought you’d be better prepared than this,” Mills answered with enough scorn injected into _“respect”_ to imply that it _really_ was not the word she wanted to use. “And seeing as you aren’t, we’re going to have to make you more prepared for this.”

“It was _ten years ago!_ And, if you remember, I spent a lot of those ten years of my life blocking the first eighteen of them _out.”_

The two glared at each other, frustration palpable and reaching a dangerous simmer. Izzy cleared her throat delicately and cut in.

“The candidates are in order, Marshal.”

“Good,” Mills ground the word out without breaking her staring match with Emma. “Kindly find someplace for our latest recruit to hone her skills until she’s actually ready to stand a chance against her own drift candidates.”

“Subtlety really isn’t your style, is it?” Emma didn’t mean her voice to carry _quite_ so much as it did, nor for the Marshal to hear her, but judging by the way Izzy’s eyes widened and the muscle in Mills’ jaw twitched, she’d failed on both counts. 

Oops.

“You’ve _no_ idea.” The new voice was laden with just as much contempt, if not possibly _more,_ than that of Marshal Mills. Emma immediately recognized the distinctive Scottish lilt, and her stomach dropped.

Just her luck. Of _course_ it belonged to the  _one person_ she never wanted to see again.


	6. Chapter 6

Gold was awake long before eight. As predicted, sleep did not come easy, especially now that he was back in a world he’d been out of for ten years. Luxuries such as sleeping were nigh impossibilities when his son lurked behind every closed eye and unconscious lapse in thought.

He gave up on sleep entirely by the time the clock hit four and started pacing to wear himself out, but the tiny, compact room just set Gold’s nerves jangling at an even more unbearable frequency. So he took to the hallways, then the near-deserted docking bay, but found that even the handful of people in that space set him on edge.

(The fact that they all stopped their work to look at him had nothing to do with it.)

(Absolutely nothing.)

So Gold resigned himself to wandering the slightly corroded passages and halls of the Shatterdome in an attempt to piece together some marginally useful informal map. This place had none of the sleek, proud vibrancy of the Shatterdomes of the glory days; it was all harshly patched-together bits and pieces of whatever rough, raw materials they could get their hands on. The once cleanly lit hallways were dim, the sides coated with long stretches of exposed pipe. There was a vague melancholy air to the whole thing, to seeing how such a revolutionary symbol had decayed into this ruin of nostalgia and metal scrap.

He didn’t know when he’d crossed into the research department, but it apparently happened at _some_ point because Gold ran into one of the scientists, quite unfortunately _literally,_ sending his untidy stack of Important Papers flying. He wouldn’t have pegged the man as one of the few devoted to studying the kaiju, especially since he lacked any indicators that he was more than a civilian.

“Sorry - Sorry! Sorry, I wasn’t - I didn’t - ” The other man stopped in the middle of scrambling to gather back whatever stacks of research he had in hand, round glasses slipping sideways down his nose. “Oh. Oh my god. You’re _him.”_

“Sorry?” Gold snapped, still in a state of semi-shock, leg humming with a fresh bout of pain from the collision.

“The - _the_ guy. Spindle Gauntlet? 2012, brought down Hellhound in Anchorage! The Golden Boys? Nick and Neal Gold?”

Gold’s throat tightened. _Reminders_. Excellent. Good. _Exactly_ what he’d set out in search for.

The scientist seemed acutely aware of the kind of effect his words just had, to his _very_ little credit. Gold couldn’t help but marvel at his truly magnificent attempts to backpedal.

“I - I’m sorry, I didn’t - didn’t think. I mean, I...I’m sorry.”

Gold nodded shortly, and the worry in the man’s face cleared, soon replaced by reserved wonder.

“B-but you are. _Him?_ Right?”

He apparently interpreted Gold’s monosyllabic grunt as a _‘yes’_ and stuck out his hand with a bright enthusiasm.

“Archie. Hopper. Well, technically it’s _Doctor_ Hopper, but Archie’s fine. More than fine.” The smile became a tad strained. “Please don’t call me ‘Doctor’.”

Gold nodded as politely as he could manage and continued on his way. Hopper clamored to retrieve his papers and, much to Gold’s frustration, began to follow him. Evidently the laconic demeanor was not sending a strong enough _signal._

“You’re research department, then?” It seemed that since he was unable to shake this persistent tail, there was no other choice other than to engage in reluctant conversation. Gold had been out of the world long enough to know he’d lost touch of what people typically said in standard conversation but Hopper didn’t seem to mind, which was not only unexpected but oddly refreshing.

“Yeah, you got me. Not as impressive as being a _pilot,_ I know, but…” He shrugged. “You play to your strengths and, and all.”

“I suppose.” Gold had nothing more to say to that.

Did that make the conversation over?

“We’re really excited to have you on board,” the scientist offered when Gold made no further observation.

Apparently not.

Undeterred, Hopper forged bravely on: “The Marshal was really eager to get you in on - hey! Hey, Whale!”

Much to Gold’s irritation, he then waved a _second_ scientist over, seemingly out of nowhere. It only took the ex-Ranger a second to realize that they’d entered the part of the Shatterdome that was actually devoted to the research and study of the various kaiju parts from the kills accumulated over the years. Naturally the area would be populated by a surplus of scientists. Naturally.

The second man looked much more official, what with his spotless white labcoat and clipboard, but Gold’s first impression of him proved to be a relatively incorrect assessment. Hopper’s research associate caught the ex-pilot off guard with a broad, cheeky grin.

“Dr. Whale,” he introduced himself with a shade of pride. “Sorry about the mess. The labs here are a little, uh, smaller than what we’re used to.”

As if to prove his point, Hopper chose that exact moment to try and clear a space on one of the tables for his sheaf of papers, an attempt that resulted in knocking what appeared to be kaiju entrails into a slimy heap on the floor.

“Really?” Whale complained. “Third time this week! _Really?”_

“It’d be an awful lot easier if you took the time to organize the place,” Hopper answered apologetically.

“Organize? Great, okay, you can get a jumpstart on that and tell me how it goes. Except, oh wait, we’ve got about a million things that need our immediate attention and the Marshal wants our data on the prediction for the next event in less than twelve hours, so, you know, if you want to take that valuable time to _organize_ just be my guest - ”

Gold took the chance to slip out, or as best as he could with his old injury hampering the movements that would be discreet. Thankfully the scientists seemed too engrossed in their inconsequential argument to take much notice. He didn’t have a terribly large interest in it. It wasn’t even light out yet and he had hours to kill before needing to report to the Kwoon, so the ex-pilot resigned himself to brushing up on his tired skills in one of the old training rooms.

Dawn found the old Ranger battering away at a worn-looking punching bag, practically hopping on his good foot to keep his balance. He was a little wobblier in his boxing than he’d like, but Gold was at least satisfied to find that many of the old movements were coming back to him. Ten years out of the field was a long time. He was lucky to have retained as much as he did.

Two final whacks at the tough, thinning fabric of the punching bag, and Gold limped back to lean against the wall. He knew better than to exert himself fully before the search for some poor soul who might be drift compatible with him began proper.

But he’d needed it.

He’d needed to burn away some of that anger, frustration, spent so long in their internalized locking grids. Even fractionally, the physical work allowed some expression of the years of drawn-together grief - a method of coping, however transient.

He rested his hand on the roughness of the wall and breathed out the rest of the exhaustion, the fleeting grasp of closure or its more attainable, less enduring equivalent.

Gold had no clock or watch, but a glance at the watery fingers of sunlight that had begun to creep over the horizon confirmed that he should find the Combat Room soon to avoid the shame of being late to his own trials on the first day. He wondered if an officer would be along to help him navigate the maze of hallways in the Shatterdome, then cursed when he remembered that he’d been foolish enough to roam around unchecked for the past few hours. No one _would_ know where he’d went.

He swiftly unwound the wraps from his hands and backtracked to the research area, then back through the winding network of halls until he made it back to the docking bay. From there he could pinpoint his position easily enough and was able to reach the Kwoon with a few minutes to spare.

As it turned out, trials were already underway. Inasmuch as one could employ the term “trials” to refer to what was actually transpiring, anyhow, as they more or less seemed to consist of some unfortunate rookie getting the business end of a staff in the gut every other strike and ending up in a heap on the floor by the end. Each time, she got back to her feet with a sort of steely weariness, readied herself with a slack posture that practically spelled out her defeat for her, and promptly got knocked flat on her back again.

Gold huffed his quiet derision and crossed his arms. However poorly he was worried he might fare, at least he could hold his own a good deal better than _this._

His balance started to tremble, so he hastily fetched himself one of the wooden combat staffs to prop himself on for relief. His leg was already killing him from the workout it had gotten in the predawn hours. Thankfully, all the assembled Rangers were too fixated on the struggles of the rook in the ring to notice the crippled ex-pilot in the back leaning heavily against a staff for support, a fact of which Gold was exceedingly grateful.

“Four-zero,” called the officer, obviously the one keeping tabs on the performances. Gold squinted at her for a moment. Unless he was very much mistaken, this was the same officer who’d been his escort the day before; the startlingly blue eyes were a dead giveaway.

He couldn’t help but pity her in his own snide, disparaging way. This couldn’t be a terribly interesting job, what with the rookie getting royally beaten down each time.

He lost count of the number of undignified defeats it took before it looked that both the Marshal and her floundering recruit had definitively had enough. The blonde sprang to her feet and the two immediately initiated a shouting match. Gold didn’t deign to pay much attention to the words, particularly once he recognized the rook’s face.

He might have been able to identify it well enough on his own, but it was the trace remnants of Neal’s memories that kicked the recollection factor into overdrive. He knew her from the drift, from his son’s affectionate remembrances of her: willful and stubborn, razor tongue, cynical and fiercely loyal and lacking the inventiveness and imagination of Neal Gold.

Gold’s lip half-curled. He had a marked disinterest in being forced to interact with Emma Swan again, particularly when one considered the context of their acquaintanceship. She hadn’t had the decency to attend Neal’s memorial service, instead choosing to take the nearest flight out in favor of, he assumed, a Fresh Start, or whatever it was that heartbroken young rookies who hadn’t even tasted blood were meant to do.

He hadn’t expected or hoped to ever see her again.

He shifted his hands' grasp of the staff, mouth twisting into a partial scowl as he looked away. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need the blazing mental association needling its way into those last fragments of Neal’s memories and he definitely didn’t need it _now._

Clearly Mills hadn’t wanted to bring them on board at the same time for this very reason. She’d had a vague enough idea that something akin to this could happen, though apparently lacked the foresight to put up many preventative measures.

Said Marshal was still engaged in verbal sparring with the Swan girl, but it looked to be winding down as she rapped out orders for her officer to get Emma some fresh training under her belt.

“Subtlety really isn’t your style, is it?” Swan taunted, and Gold’s cold expression curled into an amused half-grin. So perhaps that endeared her to him somewhat. _Somewhat._

“You’ve _no_ idea.” Some small, rational part of himself regretted the action immediately after he stepped out from the crowd of Rangers observing the tests, but there was a _buzzing_ just under his skin, singing him into brashness and outspoken, poorly thought-out action.

He and Neal had still been connected when he’d died, after all, and some people never left the drift.

The Swan girl whirled around to face him, and he glimpsed the flash of furious recognition on her face for a vicious second before she stormed straight at him.

“What’re you doing here?” she demanded hotly.

“I was recalled, same as you,” Gold replied as smoothly as he could. Just underneath his cool exterior, his heart was hammering a staccato drumbeat in his chest. “Though, really, I could ask you the same question. You have even _less_ reason to be here, if you’ll remember.”

“We should probably get going,” the officer interrupted, plainly trying to rein the confrontation in a notch.

“Yeah, all right.” Emma began to back off, then shot a hard look at the officer. “Hey - his name isn’t on my candidate list, is it?”

“Well I - I don’t know, I - ”

“There’ll be a problem if it is,” Gold drawled. He tried to hide just how much he was leaning against the staff to keep himself upright, trying his damnedest to play it off as casual disinterest. “We don’t get along much in the real world, I’m afraid. I’d hate to see what we’d do to the drift.”

“We can check later,” the officer insisted. She really was determined to keep Gold and the Swan girl separated, wasn’t she? A reasonable enough goal, he had to admit. “Right now, why don’t we just…?”

“Fine,” growled Emma. Without further fanfare, she stalked off.

“Right. Well. Mr. Gold,” the officer began as soon as the recruit was out of earshot.

“It’s just as well you arrived when you did, Gold,” the Marshal rode over her officer smoothly. “We were losing hope for our newest. Would you be ready to start your own trials a little ahead of schedule?”

No. No, he wouldn’t.

“Yes.” He nodded curtly.

“Good.” She signaled to the officer - French, was it? - who immediately rushed to carry out the order. In a matter of minutes the second lineup of drift compatibility candidates were ready for a round in the ring with the old washup from ten years back. None of them looked very enthused to have been selected. Gold wouldn’t have expected them to.

At the nod of the Marshal, he repositioned his grip on the combat staff and readied himself for candidate number one.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More exposition. Because obviously pacing was my number one priority!

There were dozens of reasons one might join the Jaeger Program. Some people were simply gloryhounds, unable to look past the obvious propaganda boasting the honor and glamor of being war heroes. Some had personal vendettas with the Breach and the monsters that crawled from it, and others still were roped into the program when they learned they had that _unique skill_ the program prized above all else, drift compatibility. Some were bribed, some were persuaded, and some simply knew nothing else. Some were children of the cockpit who grew up in the Academy for whatever reason, and would likely know nothing else outside of that world.

Ruby’s reason, of course, was because of her mother.

Her dad had never been in the picture, so she was raised by her Gran - ex-military and very vocal about it - but she’d met her mother, an aloof, distant woman named Anita, only once, and that was too long ago for her to have much besides hazy memories. They weren’t even _good_ ones, really; too much shouting and distance between her mother and her Gran, and too little of the warmth of familial comfort that she craved. 

Gran had explicitly forbade Ruby from actively seeking her own blood out, at least until she turned eighteen and no longer had to be financially dependent on a guardian anymore, but she never got that chance. The first kaiju had made land in San Francisco - the city where Anita lived - when Ruby was six.

She might never have been a true child of the Academy, but Ruby remembered little else besides after that point. She’d trained with a determination and vigor that must have impressed the higher-ups, because she landed herself a Mark V jaeger, the very first and last of its production line. 

And, more importantly, she’d landed herself a drift partner.

“I hear there’s trials today at eight,” said drift partner, Graham Humbert, noted as he entered her quarters with two cups of coffee in tow. Ruby grinned as she accepted one of the cups. She hadn’t needed to ask. They’d done a full-range diagnostic with Omega Red just yesterday, and the resulting ghost drift was still in effect. And ghost drifters could always tell if their partners were thirsty or tired or, in Ruby’s case, caffeine-deprived.

“Yeah, I got the news.” Ruby blew on the coffee to cool it and took an experimental sip. She paused to make a face before continuing. “Why? Think it’s worth checking out?”

Graham made a faintly interested noise in the back of his throat but said nothing. He took an impressively large gulp of his own coffee. Ruby waited patiently for his expression to contort at the aftertaste.

“Oh. Wow.” He stared down his mug with undisguised disgust. “I think my esophagus is actually dissolving right now.”

“You know, there _could_ be some merit in that. Seeing the compatibility trials,” she clarified at Graham’s confused expression. “Watching rookies crash and burn can be a _real_ morale booster.”

Graham laughed as he socked her playfully on the shoulder. “You’re talking like you _weren’t_ one under a year ago." 

“Well, I’m not _now._ That’s the whole point.” Ruby smirked. “Besides, you’d still be some boring old officer if we hadn’t clicked that first run. Face it, buddy - you lucked out.”

“All right, so we both did.”

It wasn’t an exaggeration. Graham Humbert had served the same position Izzy took now, working closely with the Marshal and doing most of her legwork when, out of sheer frustration that Ruby wasn’t connecting with any of the other recruits, he’d thrust his clipboard into a startled rookie’s hands and stepped into the ring himself. It turned out to have been the best decision he’d ever made.

Watching the latest rounds of trials now, the two couldn’t help but agree that this horribly outmatched newcomer should probably hope for a miracle of equal or greater proportions. 

“She’s not _bad,”_ Graham muttered into Ruby’s ear after the rook she’d unceremoniously dubbed “Blondie” took her fourth fall in a row. “Out of practice, is all.” 

Ruby snorted. That would be interpreting the situation _very_ liberally.

“Out of practice is occasionally missing the mark. What she’s doing now? _That’s_ crashing and burning.”

As if to prove her point, Ruby’s matter-of-fact statement was punctuated by the hard _thud_ of the Shatterdome’s newest hitting the floor of the ring. Again.

“Yeah, all right.” Graham winced. “I can see what you mean.”

They opted to take their leave after that. Seeing as they already had a jaeger of their own, there was no need for them to attend the trials for any reason other than their own entertainment. Even Ruby stopped being amused when the ring matches turned into personal confrontations with the Marshal. Besides, there was always something to be done with Omega - checks and rechecks on the hydraulics and Conn-Pod, and dozens of other things that were infinitely more fascinating than watching some rook continue to hit the mat.

They ran into Aurora on their way to the docking bay, though her partner was nowhere to be seen.

“Not interested in watching the tests?” Aurora asked, frowning a little as she greeted them.

“Tests,” scoffed Ruby. “More like beatdowns. Lemme tell you, there are more interesting things to do than watch a rook get the short end of the stick over and over and over and over and _over...”_ She trailed off meaningfully. 

“That bad?” One of Aurora’s eyebrows quirked skyward.

“Let’s just say she falls pretty far short of a trained jaeger pilot.” Graham was trying to sound nice, she could tell.

Aurora didn’t look pleased at the news.

“We don’t have a lot of choice besides,” she reasoned. “That new recruit? If she doesn’t connect with someone, we’re one jaeger short in our final push at the Breach. That can make or break the entire _war.”_

“Regular ray of sunshine, aren’t you? _Ow!”_ The last word was directed at Graham, who picked that moment to step on Ruby’s foot. “So what you’re saying is, uh, a lot depends on her.” 

Aurora nodded.

“But, you know, no pressure or anything, huh?”

Ruby’s false cheer did nothing to lighten the dismal mood. They parted ways not long after, but instead of heading for Omega, Ruby and Graham took the long way around to look over the, as of now, unfilled jaeger.

Cygnus Royal. 

Far from brand new material, it had been under construction for eight years, only completed now that the program no longer had enough money to slap together an entirely new machine. It had gotten a little rough near the tail-end of completion, and it showed: there were visible patches of it that were built almost entirely from surviving scraps of other jaegers, including the Marshal’s last. A shiny new paint job, some smoother hardware, and a fresh application of the newer weapons systems had it down as a Mark IV. It was toughly, gracefully built and could be a truly devastating force in battle, if only it weren’t for the tiny problem of how it lacked those that could pilot it.

“What happens if they can’t find a match?” Ruby asked after the two had stood there in respectful silence for a spell.

“Really can’t say.” Graham sounded rather forlorn at the prospect. “But Aurora’s right. A lot depends on being able to fill this jaeger. Hell, that rook back there might end up being the only reason we pull through this war.”

“Right. That’s what I wanna hear.”

All joking aside, Ruby knew her co-pilot was right. And, she realized with a steady sinking feeling, it didn’t look like their chances of getting Cygnus Royal running in time for the next event were very high.

They weren’t very high at all.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got some major reworking from its original draft, hence the long wait. Also because I'm doing this instead of work. 
> 
> This chapter also comes with a warning for panic attacks, generalized anxiety, heavy dissociation, and traumatic flashbacks.

Locating a drift compatible individual, Gold soon decided, was _incredibly difficult._

He and Neal had been an easy match, a quick, logical pair, and they ran through the compatibility tests like they were nothing. They’d worked well together in almost every aspect. Their blood bond had tied them down together strong.

The matches with the first couple of candidates immediately verified that such would not be the case this time around.

Despite his efforts to prepare himself for the trials, the fast-paced combat still came as a shock. Gold’s first few tussles were clumsy and resulted in embarrassing defeat, especially since nearly all of his opponents immediately zeroed in on his injured leg. Once he picked up on the recurring strategy to target his obvious weakness, however, Gold was quickly able to steer the fights to his favor. Feints and lures worked just as well in the ring as they did in a jaeger, he concluded with a grim satisfaction. His leg throbbed with every tiny movement by the end of the fifth round, but he actually started to enjoy himself nevertheless, almost forgetting the fact that he was continuing to beat his drift compatibility candidates wasn’t actually a good thing as far as the general situation was concerned.

“Four-one,” the officer, French, announced once Gold bested his sixth opponent by hooking his staff behind her ankle and using her own weight to pitch her to the ground. The ex-Ranger allowed himself a satisfied twist of one side of his mouth as he righted himself. The barest flutters of enjoyment following the victory ran in such jarring dissonance to the Marshal’s scowl that he frowned, taken aback for a minute.

“What?” The word snapped out with more accusatory force than intended.

“Mr. Gold,” French began delicately. “Perhaps you might have forgotten that these aren’t fights. They’re dial-ups, test runs. It’s about finding physical compatibility with someone else.”

“I am _aware,”_ he flared back with a truculent arch of one eyebrow and a narrowing of eyes, intonation merciless. “That _is_ what I’ve been doing.”

“With respect, I don’t think that’s true.” Her voice was hesitant, but it still carried clear and firm, her gaze unwavering.

“Excuse me?” Gold growled.

“You’re agile, yes, and you’re a strategically sound fighter,” French told him evenly. “But you fight to win, not to find balance.”

“Well, yes. That’s typically how battles are won.” His thumbnail bit into the combat staff’s worn wood, scraping ineffectually at the surface smoothed by so many hands, pressing back the instinctive hostility that had begun to curdle his short-lived good mood.

“No. They’re not.”

Gold blinked, restless twitching growing still. This officer addressed him with a frankness that was entirely unlike the tentative pity or outright hostility he’d faced so far.

She continued, nonplussed. “Battles are won through patience, discipline, tactics. And, most importantly, cooperation between individuals. Mr. Gold, I’m not asking you to hold back. But I’m saying that to be drift compatible with someone, you have to have the courage to let them in. And right now? You’re holding _yourself_ back.”

“This has gone on for long enough.” Mills sounded as tired as Gold felt. “Miss French, we’ll reconvene here in an hour. Everyone else, I want you rested and refueled for the next set of trials tomorrow morning.”

The crowd dispersed with exhausted mutters of agreement. The officer, French, slipped out at the Marshal’s dismissal and Gold rushed to follow, using the combat staff as an impromptu walking stick.

“Miss French.” The officer froze in the middle of the hallway as it gradually emptied around her. “Miss French, wait.” He wove around the departing candidates, rapidly lapsing into his more familiar limping gait, free hand catching at the wall for impromptu support. “Please. Wait.”

She turned. Her mouth was set in a firm, hard line.

“Don’t tell me my assessment was unfavorable,” she said before Gold could go any further. “It was perfectly fair and you know it.”

“That’s...not what I was about to say, but fair enough.” He did his best to straighten his posture into something a little less damaged, but his two-handed grasp of the staff to hold himself upright made his current pain and discomfort quite clear.

“Then what is it?” The officer slackened her grip on her clipboard and rubbed one hand at the back of her neck in a quiet indication of her fatigue. “The Marshal wants me back there in an hour and I haven’t eaten since morning.”

“I wanted to thank you, actually.”

She stilled, lowered her hand, and canted her head at him. Evidently this was not what she expected to hear.

“I’m sorry, but for...what, exactly?”

Gold shrugged - or performed his best approximation of a shrug while one half of his body steadily tumbled its way out of commission. “Being honest. It’s a rare thing with me and it was, how should I say? A nice change of pace.”

She brightened a touch, perhaps not simply because of the pun. Gold’s leg throbbed. “Was it?”

One corner of his mouth pulled upward wryly in what was assuredly not a smile of any sort, even if _her_ smile was rather nice. She’d remained relatively stone-faced for the majority of the trials - a fact for which he couldn’t particularly blame her, considering how achingly useless he’d found them to be himself - and it was oddly rewarding to glimpse something more genuine beneath. He shifted his grip on the staff, allowed one hand to slide away so he could stand a fraction more independently. His leg again protested weakly, but he ignored it.

“Yes,” he answered, inclining his head slightly. “My reception here hasn’t been particularly warm, to say in the least.”

French’s briefly warm expression dimmed a little at that, closing on itself again.

“That’s unfortunate,” she said, and she sounded like she meant it. After a moment’s stuttering hesitation in which she seemed to balance on a precipice of some kind, she forged ahead. “And it seems cruel to me, that after all this - everyone keeps saying it’s suspicious and saying you did wrong, but I - all you ever did was fight and stay alive.”

It spilled out in an unsteady outpour, and French looked like she hadn’t meant for it to be so uncontained. There were words Gold meant to provide in reply but found he could only salvage a quiet repetition of, “yes,” breathed out in mild confusion, the air condensing into a worrying viscosity that wasn’t benefitting his lungs at all -

\- and a spasm of fresh pain abruptly rocketed from his leg to his spine, and Gold buckled. The officer stretched out a hand, concerned, but no sooner had her fingers brushed against his shoulder were the memories lancing back into his head, fresh and searing -

_“Hang on, hang on! Spindle, that thing’s still alive!”_

_“Where?”_

_“Signal at your right! Just hold on, Spindle, we’re sending in - ”_

_Whatever the LOCCENT officer had to say next was cut off by a roar of water mingled with the high, shrieking cry of an injured kaiju._

_No, not just injured._

Furious.

_It slammed into Spindle Gauntlet with full force, driving the jaeger beneath the waves, and began its work tearing away at the Conn-Pod with great swipes of its broad, greedy jaws._

_“It’s piercing the hull!” Neal bellowed, but neither of them were sure their comms were even working anymore. Water was spurting in from all directions. Nick could hardly make out his son, for god’s sake - how were they supposed to fend off this monster now?_

“Mr. Gold?” Miss French’s eyes were blue and had always been blue, almost the precise shade of Kaiju Blue, blazing a hole into his head -

\- he was finding it very difficult to breathe, the air dense and blistering in his throat -

_\- every labored breath only sucked more spray mingled with icy air into their lungs. Neal was hurt, left arm dangling uselessly at his side, and now Nick’s throbbed with the phantom tingle of his co-pilot’s pain._

_“Just - just hold on, son,” he rasped out. “Come on, just hold on.”_

_But it was getting harder, it was getting harder to cling to what was real, what was actual, what was_ there, _because the memories were getting slippery in Nick’s head, unraveling and unsustained and_ unbearable _. He couldn't categorize which ones were his, which ones were…_

_(...Neal’s mother hadn’t come back that night…)_

_(...he’d gone to go look for her…)_

_(...the floor shouldn’t have been that red…)_

_“Papa!” Neal bellowed. “Papa, stop! You’re latching onto a memory, you can’t - ”_

_Spindle froze into grating, wrenching deadlock, held in rigid indecision by two forces opposed. The right hemisphere was out of alignment, the jaeger could only shudder as one of its pilots slid out of mental reach. The kaiju saw the window and took it, plunging a ruthless assault on Spindle’s torso. It wrenched out a great chunk of the plating and sent it spinning into the seething waves._

_The shock of pain was enough to bring Nick forcefully, harshly back to earth._

_“Neal?” he breathed. He picked up the briefest flicker of his son’s terror and desperation and mingled relief that his father and fellow pilot had torn himself free of that mnemonic hell -  
_

_Then the kaiju screamed, dug its fangs into Spindle’s right leg._

_And tore it off._

“Mr. Gold!” the officer was saying more urgently, shaking him. Why was she shaking him? Why was she -

 _\- the jaeger was shaking from the repeated pummeling from both from the sea and the kaiju stirring up its waves. Both fangblades were shot, their hull had been breached, and they were dead in the water. Nick could feel his good leg quivering with the effort of holding himself up. He was sagging in the cockpit, struggling to assess the situation, to look at it objectively, to_ think, _but his thoughts were all pained, dying things, made thick and sluggish and fuzzy like nerve endings deadened._

 _Maybe they_ were _deadened._

Everything atrophies.

Everything dies.

 _“Son - ” Nick gasped out before inhaling a lungful of water. Whatever he’d planned on saying next dissolved into incomprehensible sputtering. He was having enough trouble just trying to_ breathe _. There was an excruciating pressure constricting his chest, sealing off his lungs. The dreadful, familiar instinct was flashing in blazing neon, intoning him to_ run, run, run _and he made to turn, get out of here, forgetting for one_ stupid _second that he was sharing the body of a giant mechanism, and every component slammed into a trembling standstill -_

_\- and the indecision on the part of both pilots, of course, left the jaeger utterly defenseless -_

_The entire machine quaked as the kaiju rammed its narrow, flattened head into the machine’s side and toppled it, bringing its Conn-Pod to the perfect height for the wounded beast to lunge up -_

_\- Neal howled -_

_\- Nick couldn’t think, he couldn’t think, his leg was going blissfully numb -_

_\- the kaiju’s jaws smashed through the damaged cockpit, closed around Neal, and ripped him away._

Was he on the ground? Why was he on the ground? Someone was shouting - why was there shouting? There really shouldn’t have been, there was no need -

 _Nick couldn’t activate the bodily functions it took to shout except that he must have - there was an awful dragging scream shredding its way into his ears and his throat felt raw and wet and that sound couldn’t have belonged to Neal, it_ could not have, _not when he’d been so bold and vibrant and_ alive _seconds, heartbeats earlier, not when he’d when he’d when he’d when he’d when he'd when -_

_\- some critical piece of him fractured, and the entire spectrum of terror, panic, anguish, stabbed out feebly from Neal’s dying head until it spiraled into nothing at all, and Spindle began to drop -_

_\- and then there was silence, horrible and empty, a mental vacuum sucked dry, and the sick clenching dread of_ knowing -

_\- and the full weight of Spindle’s control crashed down onto Nick’s already overloaded nervous system._

_A distant horn blared and it was soon followed by the sloshing of mammoth legs through water, then the pounding of impossibly huge fists and the kaiju wailing as some other jaeger pummeled it back, hopefully tore its fucking throat out, and here Nick was having enough trouble trying to steer Spindle away from the combat, away from the monster, away from everything. He was sobbing, maybe, possibly, probably, but there was no way to tell. His perception had become a thing untrustworthy, something distant and inoperable, and with the disparity of the cacophony outside and the awful blankness within, there was no way to think through the chaos left in their respective wakes. He simply became aware that somehow, eventually, he must have forced the damaged jaeger to drag itself in weird, jerking steps to the coastline._

_He didn’t know how long it took for him to reach land, only that he ended up tumbling out of the ravaged Conn-Pod some indeterminate stretch of time later, and onto some frigid slab of ice. He gasped for air and relief from the scalding agony in his leg and his arm and his head, unaware that his panting had words to it._

_“...sor...sorry...sorry...”_

_The pain was unrelenting but he clung to it, that shallow proof that he still existed. He'd lost every anchor besides that basic, instinctive thing, that critical piece. He needed the proof for himself. He was in pain. He existed. He was in pain. He was human. ~~No he wasn't.~~ _

_He was. He was human. Incredibly, unbelievably, but still._

_Barely._

_There was no mechanism to halt the ragged sobs trembling through him. There was no buffer. There was no drift. Nothing. His mind could process little besides the hard pain knifing into his leg, his arm, (Neal’s arm), his chest, his entire body. Except._

_Except for his head._

_He couldn’t interpret anything he was feeling, until he realized it was because he_ wasn’t.

_He couldn’t remember the last time it had been so quiet in there._

_And it terrified him._


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot this monster of a fic existed. I'm still working on editing and completing it, I promise, for the five people who care.

The entire Shatterdome had been humming with activity and high-strung excitement all week over the possibility of not one, but _two_ new jaeger crews to assist the Marshal’s planned assault on the Breach. The search for drift compatible pilots had begun that morning, and it felt like all of Shatterdome had gathered for it.

So was it _really_ such a bad thing, _really,_ that watching that sort of thing simply didn’t hold Mary’s interest?

She hadn’t bothered with the trek to the Combat Room, even if David had offered to stand by and make smart remarks with her. Mary preferred the quiet of one of the out-of-the-way training rooms, where she was free to warm up in peace. The rhythmic striking of the training mannequins and punching bags was relaxing to her, gave her some grasp of the feeling of control that had been slipping out between the disorder in her life.

Mary didn’t know how long she’d worked like that, but it must have been quite a while. A mildly disconcerted mutter of, “sorry, um. Sorry,” alerted her to the presence of a someone else she hadn’t registered was in the same room as her.

The other voice shattered her concentration, and she dropped her offensive stance in front of one of the shabby combat mannequins.

The intruder put up both hands, palms out, in a clear gesture of reluctant compromise.

“Look, you’re obviously busy, so I’ll just…”

“No, hang on.” Mary frowned at the other woman who looked very much like she would _not_ like to hang on. It only took her a minute to recognize her. “You’re her. Shatterdome’s newest?”

The wry, self-deprecating tug to one side of the recruit’s mouth told Mary that she _really_ hadn’t wanted to be identified.

“In the underwhelming flesh.”

The rook looked very much like she was about to go edging out of the room at any moment, her eyes dark, shoulders tense and subtly anxious. The silence between them expanded in both length and mutual uncertainty, until Mary seized upon practiced social grace and extended a hand. “Mary. Pilot of the - ”

“Aureola Brave, I know.” The rook took it, one shoulder jerking up in a partial shrug. “I do watch the news. Emma Swan.”

“Emma.” Mary’s smile was a shade less forced this time, if a bit sad. “That’s a nice name.”

“Um. Thanks.” Wrong-footed, Emma glanced over her shoulder with a nervous, uncertain jerk of her chin. “Look, uh, if you want me to find someplace else to, to train or - ”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Mary cut over her, tone light. Overly so, if Emma’s skeptical arch of an eyebrow was any indication.

“What, you sure?”

Mary wondered if she was capable of converting her grimace into something slightly more encouraging. It was difficult to tell. Emma’s demeanor was locked in wary indecision.

“Absolutely. Getting ready for a co-pilot?”

“Well, uh.” Emma rubbed the back of her neck, shoulders hunching. “Yeah, that’s probably not happening. First day of tests? Off to a bad start. Bad, bad start.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mary replied politely. 

“Yeah. Well. It happened.” Emma surveyed the tumbled variation of battered supplies. “This place really has everything, doesn’t it?”

“It has whatever wasn’t sold or destroyed before it was all moved here.”

Emma blinked, expression looping back to uncertainty. “Oh.”

She picked up one of the wooden combat staffs and swung it a few times, testing the heft and speed of the worn, scuffed wood. One broadening arc cut too close to Mary for comfort, and in a sequence of reflexive, deft movements, she parried and disarmed her.

 _“Shit.”_ Emma sprang backwards as though burned, eyes flying wide. _“Shit._ Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She handed the staff back, carefully rearranging her features into something politely neutral. “Just be careful.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” The rook swallowed hard before lifting her gaze to meet Mary’s. “Hey, uh. I should probably just. Yeah.” She replaced the staff on its shelf and backed away, cleanly telegraphing her intent of getting the hell out.

“It’s fine if you want to stay, you know.” 

“I mean.” Emma hesitated. “Mills said I should at least have a fighting chance next time I set foot in that ring, so I’m guessing she meant, uh. I guess the whole ‘training’ thing was an order.”

“So train.” Mary tossed Emma the staff she’d just discarded, then neatly plucked out one of her own. Emma caught it reflexively, clearly alarmed. “You’re out of practice? Get back in.”

Emma yelped in surprise when Mary took a swing at her and blocked with a wild strike to her left. When Mary used the momentum of the defense to bring the other end of the staff up just underneath Emma’s chin, she immediately stilled. Defeat in less than two seconds. That was a whole new level of impressively _terrible._

“You’re spending too much time remembering and not enough time thinking,” Mary informed her calmly. “Stop trying to recall whatever training you got before this. A lot’s changed in ten years.”

“You don’t say?” Emma sounded rattled and mildly out of breath. “Okay, so what do I do?”

“Adapt.” Mary attacked again, this time with a straightforward thrust to Emma’s mid-region. She dodged the assault nimbly, but the retaliating blow she struck out with was just as easily avoidable. Mary kept talking, smooth and controlled, and the attacks kept coming. “I used your own movements against you. You have to do the same. Gauge your opponent, work their attacks to your advantage, and when you have the window - ” She caught Emma’s heel under the end of her staff and, with a quick jerk, unbalanced her center of gravity. A quick shove with the staff’s haft finished the job and sent her sprawling. “ - take it.”

Emma glared for a minute, clearly smarting from the easy defeat. The indignance faded into curiosity soon after.

“That’s a defensive tactic,” she pointed out, getting to her feet. “I’m kind of a go-getter.”

“I realized.” _That_ had been unmistakable. “But it doesn’t matter how aggressive an attacker you are. Sooner or later whoever you’re fighting will find the opportunity, and if you don’t have a way to turn that against them, you lose the high ground. You have the advantage of unpredictability, but you lack focus and control.”

“Gee, thanks, mom,” Emma grumbled.

“You want my help or not?”

The snide remarks subsided into petulant silence. 

“Control,” Mary continued. She put very little warning into her next attack, but this time Emma seemed ready for it. Already that was in and of itself a marked improvement. Emma parried and struck out with the other end of her staff in the same fluid movement. “You don’t have a way to rein in and _think_ during combat? You’re dead in the water before you begin.”

“Shouldn’t there be balance, then?” Emma was panting from the effort to maintain the conversation and stay on her feet at the same time. “Restraint and unpredictability. Gotta have both.”

“I think you’ve mastered the latter well enough.” Mary feinted, exposing her opponent’s side, and easily dispatched her. “So concentrate on the former.”

“All right, fair enough.” Emma rose again, shaking a lock of blonde hair from her face. The hostility was gone, replaced with a grudging gratitude and respect. “Thanks.”

Mary replied with a one-shouldered shrug, trying and failing to act indifferent. The rook’s unexpected gratitude warmed her. “It’s not a big deal. A lot depends on you finding a co-pilot, so it’s sort of everyone’s job to help where they can.”

“Yeah, well. You’re the only one so far who has. So, you know. Thanks.”

“Really not an issue. When do you go back to looking?”

“Hm?”

“For your co-pilot? The compatibility trials?”

“Oh. Uh. Tomorrow morning. I think at eight?”

“Well, we have quite a bit of time until then.”

It took Emma a minute to catch on to the implications of what Mary had just said. Her shock rapidly metamorphosed into confusion.

“You’d, uh. You’d do that? Help me?”

“Well, you know. The whole world kind of depends on it.” The levity of the words did little to lessen their impact. Emma took a visibly shaken breath.

“Yeah, so. No pressure or anything, right?” she joked weakly.

Mary didn’t have an answer for that one. Instead she got into a defensive position and waited for Emma to make her first attack.


	10. Chapter 10

“Give me good news, Whale,” Marshal Regina Mills demanded as she entered the small section of the Shatterdome walled off to be devoted to the shrinking research department. Now it doubled as an impromptu medical bay.

“Good news? Good news.” Whale glanced up, swift and harried. He didn’t seem to completely grasp the concept of _good news_ at the outset, one of his hands running through his hair while the other flexed fingers in rippling asynchrony, as though typing on an invisible airborne keyboard. “Good news, good news...oh! Oh, your guy should be up and normal in an hour or so.”

“Guy?” Regina frowned, momentarily puzzled.

“Pilot? Ex-guy you brought in an hour ago? He’ll be fine. Looks like it was a panic attack, nothing special, probably just all the stress of coming back here. I mean, this is a _very_ rough diagnosis here, and I am _not,_ technically speaking, involved in the medical field - ”

“Can he walk?”

Whale hissed between his teeth in irritation. “I am not a _doctor.”_

“Yes. You are.”

Whale paused.

“I am not _that kind of doctor.”_

Mills folded her arms across her chest, unperturbed. “I need to know if he can walk.”

“Look, he should be fine. Seemed all right once he snapped out of it. Interesting guy. Met him this morning. Didn’t talk much, you know, but - ”

“Glad to hear it.” The Marshal cut the scientist off before he could get lost on one of his many tangents. “Moving on to why I’m _really_ here: I wanted to know about your predictions regarding the next event.”

“Oh! Right.” Whale scrambled to retrieve whatever data he had on hand. “Based on what we _do_ have, I still maintain that the kaiju are all, you know, genetically identical. Clones, if-if you will. And if that turns out to be true, it means that there’s some sort of base template, and the various kaiju we encounter are just engineered _specifically_ for carrying out some kind of...exact purpose.”

“And what might that purpose be?”

“Well, I have a theory,” Hopper chimed in from the back of the lab, looking up from the clipboard he had been scribbling furiously on. “Going off Whale’s. If the kaiju are all clones, then that means something’s got to be cloning them, right?”

“What are you implying?” Regina had a sinking feeling that she knew _exactly_ what they were implying, and she didn’t much like the sound of it. She missed the days when kaiju were simple brutes and the only viable solution was to keep crushing them until they stopped coming.

“The kaiju aren’t just monsters,” Whale concluded grimly. “They’re monsters that are _specially genetically engineered_ to take out specific parts of the planet’s population.”

“Like, take some of the different variations we’ve encountered over the years. Base DNA is always the same - internals, biology, basic physiology, right? That doesn’t change. But they’ve all got different characteristics, different specialities, so on. Turns out those are for a _reason.”_ Hopper flipped through some of his papers until he came up with a rough diagram of several different types of kaiju. “This kaiju, here? That’s Hammerhead, Category II, taken down back in 2012. That was in Vladivostok. He got the codename from the big, flattened skull and the sharklike appearance, etcetera, etcetera. The city - and, by extension, the Shatterdome - is located on the Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, whose high point isn’t even 900 feet. And Hammerhead? Well, he’s built for bulk, not speed, so he could’ve mowed down the entire dense population in less than a day if he’d gone on unchecked.”

“Then,” Whale took over the explanation. “Two years later we get Chernabog - big, tall fella, built more for speed and the like - and he shows up in Sydney. Put a more widespread population and a fast-moving critter together like this, and you have perfectly engineered havoc. It’s genius, really.”

Regina raised an eyebrow.

“And terrible, you know, take your pick,” the doctor hastily amended.

“You’re saying these attacks aren’t random at all?” She directed the question at Hopper, who immediately nodded.

“They’re not just systematic - they’re _planned._ As far as we can tell, the kaiju don’t have enough foresight to plan everything ahead of time. Their brains aren’t that big - well, techincally speaking they _are,_ but they’re equipped to deal with very basic brute instinct. Not planning. Not strategy.”

“So you think,” said Mills slowly, her heart sinking. She found herself utterly unwilling to complete the thought.

“So we think it’s probable,” said Hopper, neatly summarizing the conclusion she hadn’t wanted to consider, “that something else is doing the planning _for_ them.” 

“Which, bringing us back to your original question,” Whale scrawled some equations on a chalkboard. “Spells a pattern. The attacks have been steadily increasing in frequency and scope ever since they began. The last attack was a Category IV making land in Hong Kong, right? The biggest yet.”

“We’re predicting a double event,” Hopper concluded bleakly. “Double event in less than a week, followed by a triple in less than five days. The pattern keeps going and eventually we’re swarmed with kaiju at five, six, seven per day.”

“So we need to stop this now. That’s what you’re saying.” Which, of course, had been what the Marshal had been insisting upon since day one, but now this _really_ was their last chance. They no longer had the support of United Nations and the Jaeger Program was crumbling. It was already practically strung-together as it was. “How do you propose we get a destructive force - say, a bomb - into the Breach, then? We’ve attempted it in the past with no success.”

“Yeah, uh.” Whale looked sheepish. “We’re still working on that.”

“Keep working,” Mills snapped. “We’re on our last legs and if we don’t find a solution soon, it really _will_ be the end. As I’m sure you don’t need me to remind you.”

The scientists exchanged a matching look of pale, nervous desperation. No, they didn’t need the reminder. But the extra incentive couldn’t hurt.

“Marshal?” A distinctly Australian voice just to Regina’s left made her jump. She hadn’t heard her own officer come in. “Is there anything else you wanted me to do?”

“No. Or, wait. Just,” Regina rubbed one of her temples with two fingers, suddenly feeling very tired and worn. “Just make sure Gold can stay on his feet for tomorrow. I don’t want him spontaneously fainting or panicking or whatever it is going on with him.”

“Just a panic attack,” Whale persisted. “It’s not what I’d call a _fun_ experience, but he should be fine.”

“I’d prefer to have my officer check for herself.” The Marshal’s tone brooked no argument.

“Y-yes. Marshal.” French ducked her head in a brisk nod and left to do exactly that.

“Anything else you needed to tell me?” Regina asked her science team, and they shook their heads in perfect unison. 

She barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she left. It had been a long, arduous, and, quite frankly, unrewarding day. The Marshal was not an optimistic person by nature, but she couldn’t really resist sending a desperate plea to whatever deity might be watching this utter disaster to send them some good fortune soon. Really. She’d take anything.


	11. Chapter 11

As much as he liked to act otherwise, Izzy could tell well enough that Mr. Gold was not the cantankerous, embittered man he aggressively pretended to be. Perhaps not _entirely,_ anyway. Their conversation and his resulting...episode in the hallway had been very clear evidence to the contrary.

However, the man who now sat quietly grumbling as Whale checked his pulse for the umpteenth time was currently demonstrating all the characteristics she’d associate with that perceived misanthrope.

The scientist’s pencil tapped a furious tempo at the edge of his clipboard. “You eaten today?”

Gold shook his head.

 

“Drank any fluids? Water, anything?”

A pause, then another silent shake of his head. Whale hushed out a low hiss of air between his teeth. 

“So you’re dehydrated, with low blood sugar to boot. No wonder you went down.” 

He cut his diagnosis short at the look of utter distaste Gold fired his way, swallowing hard in an almost cartoonish gulp. Gold glowered at him unblinkingly with a persistence that suggested that he was perhaps trying to melt lead by sheer ocular power alone.

“You, uh, you remember anything else?” Whale prompted.

“As if it matters?” Gold growled. “I can walk and talk and hit things well enough, and that’s what the Marshal cares about, right?”

“We just want to be sure,” Izzy began cautiously, but the ex-pilot cut through her concern with a fraying impatience.

“Stop it,” he countered irritably. “I don’t care about whatever justification you lot have for any of this. I don’t care that I’m back in the same position I was in ten years ago when I swore I’d never come back to this world again. I want - no.” Gold paused to pinch at the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, shutting his eyes as though warding off a particularly persistent headache. “I _require_ that you stop pretending.”

Izzy stared. “I don’t - ”

“Stop pretending to _care.”_

Izzy froze. Her mouth worked silently for a moment before she turned away, no longer able or willing to meet the intensity of his viciously, pointedly cold glare. His words broke into her sharply, harsh and unforgiving and - 

And bitterly, blatantly correct.

Why _did_ did, she earnestly did, no matter what Gold said to the contrary. And _not_ just because everyone keeps saying that “the world depends on it.” The sight of him stumping dejectedly through the halls, a man as deeply out of place as she sometimes felt, a man who had already fought his fight and lost everything to it, never failed to elicit a pang of sympathy.

He’d lost his son. He’d lost his son and watched - and _felt_ \- the entire thing, helpless to stop it. No matter what the rumors and complaints and angry mutters said, Izzy could - well, all right, maybe she didn’t _understand_ that, not completely, but she could sympathize. This was a man in a lot of pain, and now the Corps was asking him to shut all that down, again, and let someone else into that head, again, to risk all that horror and agony, _again._

So, yes, caring wasn’t exactly an optional course of action here. At least not for Izzy.

Whale finally gave Gold the all-clear (with the parting cry of, “Just make sure to eat something and re-hydrate, get the electrolyte count back up, all right?” before adding a desperate _“please?”_ , to which he grunted in reply). The ex-pilot wasted no time in hobbling out of research area as quickly as he could manage. Izzy hurried after, hating how it looked that she was bobbing anxiously behind him.

(Maybe she was a bit.)

(No, no. She was following orders.)

Well, so _what_ if he was intriguing to her? Just, just a _little._ He was a curious man; every detail about him told a different story. He stood with a sort of coiled menace, always poised with equal measures of aloofness and contempt, likely to discourage anyone from prying. He managed to move with a subtle sense of confidence and grace despite his old injury. And yet a closer look at his hands, which had lives of their own and could never seem to sit still, fingers rubbing against calloused prints in a manner vaguely reminiscent of spinning thread, and the way he hunched up his shoulders almost imperceptibly someone else drew near, told Izzy that at least some of that outward coldness and self-assurance masked a great deal of pain. And not simply in the physical sense, either.

There was also something darker there, a lurking vengefulness perhaps, a burning hatred toward the things that tore his son from him, but Izzy always chose to see the best in people.

(Besides, Gold had never gone further than the occasional spiteful remark since he’d arrived.)

They made it as far as the mess when Gold finally spoke again.

“Was there something you wanted?” he said, breaking off the hard bite of the consonants with a pointed intensity.

“The Marshal asked me to ensure you were all right,” Izzy replied dutifully.

“And you did that.”

“Well, uh.”

 _“What.”_ It wasn’t a question. It was a single, frustrated, ground-out syllable.

“I also. Um. Wanted to make sure.”

He stopped and turned, slowly, to face her. She couldn’t decide if the expression on his face was bewildered or annoyed or a bizarre mix of both.

“You had me worried, all right?” Izzy said defensively. She could tell her shoulders had crept up to her ears and she was standing fairly rigid, clutching her clipboard tightly to her. She forced herself to relax and loosen her hold on the makeshift security anchor. “I thought you were going to collapse or faint or _die…”_

“Oh. Oh, dear.” Gold put a hand to his heart. He looked completely and utterly sincere. “Miss French, if you were expressing worry on my behalf, I might very well die of shock.”

It took Izzy ten full seconds to realize he was joking.

“You’re awful,” she said finally.

“I’m hilarious,” he deadpanned. “This strange, tingling feeling. Would that be...joy? Excitement?” He paused for effect before cracking a dry smirk, bordering on a sneer. “Oh dear. No. Just exhaustion. If you’ll excuse me, Miss French.”

Perplexed, Izzy allowed him to take his leave. She could recognize a tacit dismissal when she heard one, twisted as it was by this man’s odd brand of wit. She’d done her job, he was as fine and healthy as he was liable to get, and there was nothing more to be said. She returned to her own quarters, groaning inwardly when she remembered that she’d have to be awake by eight tomorrow as well, and probably the day after that. 

Izzy had done her best to make the room feel like home with what little she had, but all she had really managed was to pin up a handful of photographs, all of them of her and her father, that she’d brought with her from home when she’d initially left for the Jaeger Academy. The room’s interior felt cold and unfriendly no matter what she did to it, but at least she had the comfort of a familiar face to draw solace from. 

(She hadn’t talked to her father in years, had she?)

(The thought didn’t feel like it belonged to her.)

(Preventing the end of the world took a bit of a priority.)

(It had nothing to do with how he’d explicitly forbade her from going into that warzone of a life and she’d chosen to walk away from his insistence on control of every aspect of her life without a single pang of regret.)

She tried to get some sleep. Really, she did. But her head was aflame with the various problems and mysteries the newest additions to the Marshal’s impromptu “we’re-saving-the-world” crew had brought on board with them. There was the visible reluctance of the Swan recruit, for one. That had bothered her, though she couldn’t really say why.

And then there was Gold.

 _That_ man was a puzzle if she’d ever saw one.

He projected that image of the gruff and unyielding veteran, with all the rage and bitterness and pain that she’d expect from someone who bore no desire to be roped back into the field. For the most part, he’d done a fine job lending evidence to that demeanor, every tic and detail boiling down to a firm, deep-rooted projection of distaste, each mannerism carefully calculated to evoke the most frustrated and furious reaction possible from everyone he met. He was practically inscrutable but for the minute chinks in that dense, hopelessly complicated mass of psychological armor.

They were almost inconsequential, really, barely visible to the naked eye. But Izzy had picked up on them all the same. For all his anger and resentment, Gold maintained a sense of humor, albeit a darkly sarcastic and intentionally difficult one. The sardonicism was his first line of defense for the wealth of self-directed hatred and blame that bubbled away beneath. He hid it well, but Izzy was perceptive.

All right, so she had to admit it: he was intriguing. Interesting, even.

There was nothing wrong in thinking so.


	12. Chapter 12

Maybe it was the additional training she’d got yesterday or maybe it was that she had begun to feel more at ease in this new environment, but Emma actually stood a good fighting chance against most of her drift candidates over the next handful days. True, she still lost more battles than she won, but she got some pretty good moves on a couple opponents, even surprising them with some marks in her favor. There was no indication any of them were the least bit drift compatible with her, but at least the mortification of being constantly beat to the ground had faded somewhat.

“Four-two.”

Emma released the unlucky Ranger she’d floored with a jab to his stomach and rose to her feet, sweat-slick and panting. She couldn’t help but feel immensely pleased as she allowed him back upright. It couldn’t be just her imagination that the Marshal looked less disapproving than the first day, right? 

Or maybe she was just too tired to shoot Emma any more dirty looks. 

That thought was considerably less satisfying.

As good as it felt to be holding her own for a change, it had been two days and Emma was still no closer to finding a drift partner than she had been ten years ago. Even the thrill of pride that came from being able to best an opponent had dulled. The strain of the next anticipated event - a predicted _double_ event on top of it - had begun to weigh deeply on everyone at the Shatterdome, and it showed. 

“Miss Swan,” Regina growled out when another match ended with a four-one, Emma’s favor. “You may have forgotten, but we don’t have time for your inability to be accommodating. You will find yourself a co-pilot or we will choose one for you.”

“Thought you said it doesn’t work like that,” Emma panted, brushing a stray lock from her face. Even with her hair pulled back, it easily got itself untangled onto her face again. “Putting two incompatible pilots in the same pod is suicide. That’s the first thing they teach us at Academy.”

“That may be,” the Marshal ground out. “But you might remember that we desperately need two pilots to be ready before the next event. Which, in case you’ve forgotten, is estimated to take place in _less than seventy-two hours.”_

“Right, okay.” Emma tried to play off her own unease with a shrug. “So you’re willing to compromise the safety of the pilots for the sake of _your_ timetable. That what you’re saying?”

Mills’ jaw tightened. What little murmuring had been going on from the sidelines abruptly quieted. 

The two glared. All right, if she wanted to hold a staring match so badly, Emma could do that.

A sizeable part of Emma - no doubt the part of herself that controlled rational thought - wanted nothing more than to claw the spiteful comment back, but there was also the frustratingly unreasonable area of her brain that was boldly, recklessly unapologetic.

(She tried to remind that part of her head that this was the sort of characteristic that got young up-and-coming pilots _killed.)_

(It didn’t seem to want to listen.)

And it wasn’t just that. The Marshal’s ruthless pragmatism consistently rubbed Emma the wrong way. Like, okay, Emma could get the whole “sacrifice for the greater good” thing, blah blah blah, and so on and so forth. But would it _kill_ Mills to emote in a remotely positive manner every once in awhile?

“Maybe we should stop?” Izzy seemed determined to defuse the tension before it escalated as it always threatened to. “Everyone’s tired, I’m sure - ”

“No.” Mills’ voice was flinted. “If our new pilot is so bent on finding her _perfect_ co-pilot, then we’ll keep going until she does. We wouldn’t want to _disappoint_ her with anything less than the _highest possible standard.”_

Izzy looked like she wanted to argue, but the Marshal and the recruit were still intent on their wordless staredown battle. She didn’t intervene.

Emma was forced to reluctantly break eye contact when she turned to face the next candidate on the list. And just like that, her already not-so-great day managed to get _worse._

“Looks like I _was_ on that candidate list,” a very familiar Scottish accent said dryly. “Sorry about that, dearie.”

 _“Seriously?_ Is this your idea of a joke?” Emma’s knuckles went white on her combat staff. God _damn_ but this was _not_ her idea of a good time.

“Oh, I can quite honestly say that sparring with you is hardly my idea of ‘fun’ either,” Gold scoffed.

“Honest? _You?”_ Emma scoffed. “I didn’t think that was physically possible.”

“Then forgive me if I didn’t think commitment was the best color on you, either.” He didn’t sound like he wanted to be forgiven at all. The ex-pilot actually looked _bored_ with all this, gaze drifting off to rest on the admittedly rather pretty officer at the Marshal’s side. “And yet, here we both are.”

“All right, fine,” Emma grunted. Her fingertips scudded lightly over sweat-darkened hair, combing wisps of it out of her eyes. “Let’s just - get this over with.” 

They stood at the required distance from each other and settled into position and waited. 

Emma held her staff at medium height, wavering between wanting to beat Gold to the ground in five seconds flat and knowing full well that he was far more experienced than her and therefore not likely to fall for such a straightforward tactic. 

He had the gall to _smirk_ and tilt his head fractionally to one side, a wordless, latent taunt. The sheer muted _audacity_ of the tiny movement set Emma’s teeth on edge. Fresh rage, an entirely different sort from the slow-burning exasperation she felt toward the Marshal, swelled in her chest.

The round began. Emma’s first thought was that Gold was surprisingly fast for an old guy with a creaky leg, and then he was hissing “one-zero” into her ear with his staff barely an inch from the side of her head.

Well. 

Shit.

He attacked again, and Emma parried several blows before taking an experimental swing at his bad leg. This turned out to be a mistake, as Gold was quick to steer the blow against her and back her into a corner.

And then, in a subtle flare of clarity, Emma understood his strategy. He _expected_ everyone to target his old injury. His entire offense was based off that simple evaluation. And now that she knew how he worked, she could take Mary’s advice - and turn his tactic on its head. So she made as if to take one last desperate jab at his right side but feinted. When Gold rushed to use that blow to his advantage, his left side was exposed, and Emma was quick to take the window.

“One-one.” It was her turn to smirk. His expression flickered briefly into one of surprise, then hardened. 

Oh, it was _on._

Emma couldn’t bring herself to drop the cocky grin. Even if she didn’t score a single other mark against him in the whole fight, it would be worth it, if only because she’d been able to catch the conniving bastard off guard.

Except that now he knew his normal strategies wouldn’t work on her, and immediately began to rework his tactics accordingly. He became dangerously, violently unpredictable, and Emma did her best to respond in kind, only he got to her first. A well-placed strike crooked the butt of his staff under her leg and used her own momentum to flip her onto her back.

“Two-one,” he spat. She didn’t even allow him to get back into position. Instead she swung herself to her feet and jabbed her staff forward in a single flowing movement, tangled it into his legs, and brought him down. Now their positions were reversed.

“Two- _two.”_

Gold’s next flurry of blows were vicious and precise, but Emma was startled to find that she was holding her own. She actually _matching_ him, step for step, in synch...synchronization…

Panic overtook her. No, no, hold on. She couldn’t - she _wouldn’t -_

\- but if she and Neal were - 

\- and _he_ and Neal were - 

_Oh, god, no._

Emma’s focus slipped. Two more strikes and she was down, and Gold was stepping back, breathing heavily, glowering at her with unmasked distaste.

“Four-two,” Izzy called, and a low breath of relief _whooshed_ out of Emma’s lungs. It was fine. She was fine. She would never share a head with him.

“Marshal, I really do insist that we stop,” Gold suggested smoothly. The glimpses of alarm and unbalanced fury Emma had caught in his eyes had all but vanished; his calm, knowing composure had returned. “It seems we’re all a bit tired.”

Mills didn’t look to be listening. She seemed a little preoccupied over staring at Emma with a faint, lingering suspicion. 

“Fine,” she said finally. The assembled Rangers breathed a collective sigh of relief and began to file off. Emma picked herself up off the floor, but when she turned to look for Gold, he was already stumping off with the rest. He did not turn to face her.

“A moment, Miss Swan.” The Marshal’s cold voice was quick to derail Emma’s train of thought, even as it was steering itself toward the blissful hope of food and sleep in the near future. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“What _now?”_ Emma groused. “Look, I’m _sorry_ I’m not Miss Kumbaya-Open-My-Heart. Only I’m _not,_ really. You knew what you were getting into when you brought me back on for your dumb project.”

“You were holding back,” Mills cut to the chase without a second wasted. “When you were up against Gold. I saw it. We all did. You two are - ”

“Don’t,” Emma stopped her curtly. _“Don’t_ say it.”

“Look, Miss Swan, I get that he’s not your first choice, but it’s also likely that he’s your _only_ one. You aren’t in any position to take another option here.”

“Maybe not,” Emma admitted. “But you do. So I want you to think about it. Think about the _one_ thing he and I have in common. And then ask yourself if you _really_ want all that pain and all that shared history in the same cockpit. _Really.”_

Emma didn’t wait for the Marshal’s answer. She strode out of the Kwoon without looking back, ignoring how her heart was still thudding angrily against her ribs and how her knees trembled with every step. 

Try as she might, Emma couldn’t shake the horrible nagging feeling the entire encounter had left her. Even if it turned out to only be by transitive property, the revelation that she was drift compatible with the last person she’d want to share a headspace with filled her with an inexplicable mixture of shame and dread.


	13. Chapter 13

It had been hours since he’d come up against the immovable object everyone else called Emma Swan, and Gold’s hands were still shaking. His hands were shaking and he couldn’t focus and the air was tight in his lungs and he knew it was all because _he’d felt it_ and he’d seen the look in her eyes and known that _she’d felt it too._

And it _grated_ at him.

Of all the people to be drift compatible with. Of _all the people._

No. _No._ She hadn’t even _tried_ those last two rounds. She’d gone down as easily as the rest of them, and had been grateful for it. But that didn’t change how they’d both felt it, for the most fleeting of moments, how they’d moved with that synchronized grace that only trained jaeger pilots got when they - 

_Crack._

Gold’s clenched fist thudded into the wall opposite his bunk. He regarded at the patch of wall frostily, as though it had offended him on some deeply personal level. Lashing out had done little to relieve the churning, furious anxiety that had flared up immediately after the slimmest indication of drift compatibility between him and _Emma Swan of all people_ had reared its unwanted head.

And to top it all off, now his knuckles hurt.

Adrenaline from the fight and the subsequent understanding that he and Emma were - as they were - had Gold’s muscles still clenched and his heart racing. He took to pacing around the room, hopelessly clawing for some method of distracting himself from the awful possibility his mind desperately wanted to avoid.

A knock on the door diverted his attention, and he genuinely considered thanking whoever it was before he’d even answered. The desire to do so only intensified when the officer from each of his combat sessions was on the other side. What was her name - French?

Her expression was grave.

“Marshal Mills wants to see you.” The somber tone took Gold by surprise. While the French officer had always maintained a businesslike air, he’d gotten used to how she tempered it with her own unique, quiet optimism. 

He said nothing. He only followed, like she and everyone else expected him to. He had a sneaking suspicion of why the Marshal would want to talk to him, and the idea left his good leg feeling like jelly. 

(His leg itched with each hobbling step, even more so than usual, but he made the command decision to blame that on the alarmingly high-energy spat with Swan. Its source couldn’t possibly be pinpointed to the psychosomatic. It couldn’t even be slightly linked to the too-sharp, too-bright memory of Spindle Gauntlet’s leg being torn from its body.)

The officer left Gold once they reached the Marshal’s quarters. She signalled he should enter with a slight inclination of her head before heading back down the complicated maze of hallways. He watched her go for longer than was strictly necessary, finding himself quite unwilling to proceed with actually meeting the Marshal face-to-face.

He rapped on the door with the tinny crack of knuckles against metal. 

Mills’ voice bid him to enter, and he did.

The interior was only a few square feet larger than the average room. The furnishings were spartan, bearing no remnants of anything of the Marshal’s personal life, assuming she had one. It seemed the room was as cold and unyielding as the woman herself.

“Mr. Gold,” she said without preamble. “You and Miss Swan are drift compatible.”

“No,” he growled. “We’re not. It might have come to your attention that we failed that little test.”

“She failed on purpose,” the Marshal argued with the faintest tones of _don’t-you-dare-try-to-bullshit-me_ coloring her words. “Everyone saw. You two have that connection - ”

“We have a _potential_ for that connection,” said Gold, his expression locked. “Neither of us will allow it to become anything more than that.”

Mills’ stare hardened. “We can’t afford to be picky at this point in time, Gold, and you know it.”

“I know.” He was having a harder time than usual keeping a lid on the subtle tremor in his voice. He drew his hands into fists to forestall the inevitable, but they start shaking regardless. “But putting Miss Swan and I in the same jaeger would be a mistake, Marshal. And a fatal one at that.”

“We don’t have a choice!” Her implacable disposition slipped for an instant, and a pleading edge crept into her voice. “You know what’s coming as well as I do, Gold. The world’s coming to an end. We have a chance to stop it, and you’re proposing that we give up that chance on the singular basis that you and Miss Swan _don’t happen to like each other?”_

“It’s not that simple!” he barked. He immediately regretted his harsher tone, but drove on regardless. “If you put her and I in the same machine...that’s death, Marshal. I’m not exaggerating and I’m certainly not saying this just because we don’t happen to be the best of friends at the moment. Although,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “I won’t pretend that isn’t a factor. She’s rather a forceful woman, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Gold - ” The Marshal tried to interrupt, but he headed her off.

“The only reason she and I are drift compatible in the first place, Marshal,” Gold said deftly. “Is because we happen to share the same kind of pain. We lack the fundamental ability of trust, particularly in one another. Do you _truly_ want to risk putting us in the same neural headspace? Even if we don’t tear each other apart from the combined weight of our memories, the first kaiju we come across certainly will.”

The Marshal silently digested the information for a moment. Then:

“How do we know you two can’t work _past_ that?”

“Weren’t you listening, Marshal?” He smiled, thin and bladed and humorless. Our connection is a matter of circumstance and transitive property, nothing more. You put us in the same jaeger, and there won’t be two people piloting it. There’ll be three. And I don’t believe we’re worth that risk.”

He let the words sink in. 

Mills scowled.

“Unless you can think of some other candidate more suited to this,” she said, her tone ironclad, “then you’ll both be running a drift test with Spindle.”

“Marshal, I ask that you _reconsid - ”_

“We don’t have a choice, Gold!” She cut across him fiercely. “Do _you_ see any other options here?”

Gold shut his eyes. If he had the luxury to be frank, the thought of allowing _anyone_ into his head after forcing every impulse to adapt to the sheer brutal _emptiness_ left lingering after Neal’s death was one that left him paralyzed with an anticipatory dread, but the idea of _Emma Swan_ lurking in that negative space appealed to him even less. He wouldn’t be compliant in facilitating that invasion of his own head. Not willingly would he stoop to something so uniquely profane.

“What if, say, we could find better candidates, like you said,” he said, slow and measured. “Before tomorrow? Hypothetically. Of course.”

At this the Marshal snorted. “Based on our luck so far, that’s not likely to happen.”

“But if it did?” He regarded her evenly, aligning his stare with hers as he went on steadily. “If Miss Swan and I were able to find better matches, and you saw for yourself that we were more compatible with them than each other?”

“I’d let it happen, I suppose, if it worked out in our favor. But how exactly would you even go about - ”

“Leave us to it and we’ll find a way. Do we have a deal?” Gold extended a hand. The Marshal narrowed her eyes. Gold fought down the urge to roll his. Everyone seemed to expect this fucking uniform brand of _duplicity_ from him, forgetting in those moments that there would be little to no point in furthering such a petty agenda.

Mills took his hand and shook it once, grimacing as though she were brushing palms with something dirty.

“Fine.”

Gold was out of the room before she could dismiss him proper, teeth gritted on a painful edge. His leg burned with a flaring intensity but he elected to ignore the ache. He’d grown too accustomed to its continuous presence in the past decade or so.

And in any case, he had someplace to be.

He found Emma Swan exactly where he expected her to be - beating the stuffing out of an old punching bag in one of the disused training areas. She must have been too wrapped up in her own emotional baggage, profound and manifold as he could only dryly imagine it must be, to hear him. It wasn’t until he cleared his throat that she spun around and realized she wasn’t alone. She took two steps back, hesitated, then took three forward.

The minutes trickled by and the two stood in taut silence.

“What do you want?” she demanded at last. Gold noted the way Emma’s eyes darted to the exit, like she might be assessing how quickly she could escape the situation that she undoubtedly did _not_ prefer to be in. He made a point of shifting his weight toward the door to indicate that he’d noticed.

“You felt it,” said Gold simply, without preamble. He decided against any attempts to make what he had to say any more palatable. It was best to be up-front about it. “Don’t bother denying it, because I felt it too.”

“Oh, don’t _even.”_ Emma shook her head. She was smiling, a reflex no doubt born out of her her typical disbelief, but there was something vaguely hysterical in the way the corners of her mouth twitched. “That was a fluke and you know it.”

Gold shrugged one shoulder tiredly. “I’d prefer not to admit it either, but you’re going to have to own up to it. You and I, we’re drift com - ”

“No. No, no, no, you’ve got this wrong. Believe me.” Emma put up her hands, palms out, and started backing away again. “You’re the _last_ person I’d want in my mind.”

“And you think I don’t feel the same way?” Gold’s lip curled. “But we need to deal with this. The Marshal wants us doing a test drift with Spindle by tomorrow, and unless we can find some reason to prove to her that this is a _very_ bad idea, you’re going to become _highly_ acquainted with every thought and emotion that went through Neal’s head when he died.”

Emma’s shoulders hunched as she shuddered. She pulled her arms around herself in an unconscious hug, fingertips skimming the contours of her upper arms. It was blatant emotional manipulation on Gold’s part, and they both knew it. 

Neither of them cared.

“Yeah, sorry if I don’t want to see that in high-definition surround-sound,” Emma answered in a tone that implied she wasn’t sorry in the slightest. “But I don’t see how we can change Mills’ mind, especially once it’s made up. We haven’t exactly done a stellar job of proving her wrong.” 

Then she stilled, like some new thought had occurred to her. 

Emma’s voice was very small when she spoke again.

“You - still remember?”

“What?” Gold was preoccupied with mentally carding through the index of faces he’d glimpsed since he’d arrived and considering each one a far more plausible candidate than the woman facing him now. Emma’s question jerked him fiercely back into the unwanted present, and he regarded her with a mild frown.

“You remember everything?” She shifted on her feet, a nervous, repetitive motion. Her mouth opened and drifted shut again in silent indecision before she continued. “About Neal. When he. You know.”

Gold’s throat tightened. 

They’d never talked about it. 

Of course they’d never talked about it. 

There was nothing _to_ talk about. And she’d never been around to talk about it _with._ There was nothing to say. There’d been little love lost between them, even as Neal had done his best to mend what didn’t ask or want to be mended between the two most important people in his life. He hadn’t spared a great deal of thought on Miss Swan’s behalf, before or after his son’s death. She simply never _occurred_ to him.

Slowly, he nodded.

“That’s not something one easily forgets.”

“Did he - ” The words slipped out unbidden, and Emma immediately ducked her head in embarrassment. She didn’t need to finish the sentence.

Gold said nothing.

Emma said nothing.

Gold sighed.

“You were among his last thoughts.”

It wasn’t quite a lie. Emma had almost always been on the back of Neal’s mind, especially in those moments before they engaged a hostile. A blinding image of her had flashed across his mind’s eye the instant the first wave of panic had set in, the first kernels of doubt that maybe everything wouldn’t be okay this time around, maybe they _were_ fucked and their world would be ending. But Neal’s truly final thoughts had been little more than a maelstrom of pure and agonizing fear before his mind went horribly, bleakly, utterly blank.

Emma rubbed at one arm and glanced away. Contradictory emotions flickered across her face when she brought herself to meet Gold’s gaze once more.

“It was just. It was hard, you know? Never getting to, you know.”

“Say goodbye?”

She nodded.

“I never quite did either,” Gold confessed quietly. “You share a head with a person your whole life, you think you never have to talk. But even then, you never really…” He trailed off. “It was very sudden, and.” He clipped the sentence oddly. He didn’t have a choice; the back of his throat had closed.

The two stood, lost in their own absurd parody of grief that might have actually been meaningful if it weren’t ten years after the fact, neither of them at all certain how to communicate what this one person had meant to the other. They didn’t need to drift to relive those memories - they were bright and strong and _blazed_ with hurt without the aid of any Pons Communication System.

They could never set foot into a jaeger with the intent of sharing minds with one another. The one focal point they shared was too sick and heavy with emotion to do anything besides weigh them down, tie them into a past they had no justice in resusicating.

“See, this is why we shouldn’t share a head,” Emma said at last, giving her head a little shake. “Sentimental idiots, both of us. Probably the only… _in_ compatible drift compatible people out there. And no one has any idea.”

“We do an awful good job at hiding it, don’t we?” said Gold wryly. The smile wasn’t intended and it was still more than a little melancholic, but now that they were finally deconstructing the hostility that had inflamed their every interaction since they arrived here, there seemed very little need for further masks and lies.

“Well, look at that,” Emma joked weakly. “Dead ten years and Neal’s still trying to get us to get along.”

“Stubborn, that boy.”

“Pain in the ass, more like.”

Gold huffed out something that might be interpreted as a dry chuckle.. It was incredibly, alarmingly freeing, to genuinely release even a tiny fraction of ten years’ pent-up frustration and grief and anger, and let some of it boil off into the air. He was in the presence of the one person in the world who might understand a shred of what he’d had to live with. It only seemed right.

Ten years, and they’d only just now allowed themselves to mourn.

It was too short a moment before the humor faded and they both grew sober again.

“You see why we can’t, then?” he asked, after the warmth of levity had died. “Why we shouldn’t? We’d bring too much pain in the drift, the two of us. Too much pain for us both to bear.”

“No, I agree with you.” Emma shrugged helplessly. “But what can we do? Mills has her mind set on getting us to drift, that’s what she’ll make us do.”

“Not necessarily.” At the furrow in her brow, Gold hastened to explain. “I made her a deal. If we can find better candidates by tomorrow - ”

“Wait, _tomorrow?”_ Emma’s eyebrows shot up. “We’re not - but that’s - god _damnit,_ Gold, why didn’t you _start_ with that?”

“Well, I’d planned a whole speech leading up to it, really,” Gold deadpanned. “Getting over a needless ten-year-old vendetta seemed rather more important once it came up.”

“But, I mean - _shit_ \- how do we - ?” Emma raked her hands through her hair, pacing restlessly, trying to think. “Well, who do we know that could do it? Drift with _us?_ Probably the two _least_ drift compatible people in the entire place?”

“We’ll need to come up with something fast, in any case.” Gold wasn’t certain he wanted to check the time to see how much they had left. They’d wasted too much of it already.

“I mean, even if we can’t, it’ll be all right, right?” Emma asked desperately. “We’re not, you know, a hundred percent compatible and Mills will see it and move on, right?”

“You’ve never drifted before, so I’ll explain this to you once.” Gold dropped any pretense of warmth or camaraderie. “You don’t want a drift to go wrong. In _any_ situation. We enter that Conn-Pod together, that’s what’ll happen. Mills is willing to take that risk. I, however, am not.”

“What happens if it goes wrong?” Emma’s voice shrank as she regarded Gold warily from beneath lowered brows. She sounded like she’d rather not hear the answer. 

“Not everyone who walks out from a failed drift walks out intact,” he said grimly. “And sometimes pieces of themselves get left behind.”

He offered no further explanation. He didn’t need to. He stayed long enough to watch Emma’s face blanch before he limped out of the training room and back into the twisting halls of the Shatterdome.


	14. Chapter 14

The last twenty-fours had been comprised of sixteen hours awake (Izzy counted), four hours passed out, four spent trying (and failing) to sleep, no less than five cups of coffee, and more throbbing headaches than she’d ever thought were possible in a lifetime.

Needless to say, Izzy was bone-dead tired.

She was bone-dead tired and had been running on empty practically all day and was hoping for a nap and _so what_ if it wasn’t even past 1300 hours? She’d been on her feet almost constantly since yesterday morning and she’d _earned_ a few minutes’ rest. No, more than earned them - she really, _really_ needed them. Her body was on the brink of shutting down of its own accord. This was a biological _necessity,_ and she was putting her proverbial foot down. Sleep was going to happen. Most assuredly.

Izzy woke to a flutter of knocking after barely three hours under. She briefly considered not even bothering with answering, maybe pretending she wasn’t in. The temptation ran hot in her bones for approximately five seconds before she sighed, rose, brushed some of the stray locks from her face, and answered the door.

Because it was the Right Thing To Do, and all.

She was left pretty much speechless when the door opened to an oddly nervous-looking Gold.

“Um,” was all she could manage in the spur of the moment. _Nervous_ was not an emotion she’d come to associate with him.

“I need your help,” he began frankly.

Izzy blinked rapidly, then shut her eyes very tightly. Her head was still muddled from the unsatisfactory rest she’d gotten and was still having trouble with some of the simpler functions.

“Um,” she said again. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s a long story and you’re really the only person here I recognize,” he went on sheepishly. The expression was, if possible, even more out-of-place on his normally calculating face that it only served to affirm the surreality of the situation. “I don’t, ah…” He drifted off, taking note of her look of wide-eyed incomprehension mingled with a fair bit of I-just-woke-up-and- _help,_ and thought better of whatever it was he was about to say. “If you’re up to it, that is.”

“If...I’m…” Izzy’s mind was still in _processing...processing…_ mode as she tried to scrub away the last remnants of sleep with the heel of one palm. “Sorry, what are you asking me to do?”

Gold explained the situation at a breakneck speed she didn’t even think was possible. Or maybe it was because she’d only just woken up after barely a handful of hours of sleep.

“Unless either Emma or myself can locate a better candidate before tomorrow, Mills will set us drifting. It won’t work, but there’s no other way of changing her mind,” he finished.

“A better candidate?” Izzy frowned. “You and her made a connection and you’re the only ones so far to do anything of the sort…” Then another thought occurred to her. “You called her ‘Emma’.”

“What?”

“You’ve never called her ‘Emma’.” Izzy had no idea why her brain chose to latch onto that particular detail of all details, but she was also too tired to examine it.

Gold made an odd grouchy noise in the back of his throat that sounded an awful lot like _“...priorities.”_

“My point is that if you can call her by her name, then you call me by mine. It’s Izzy, by the way.” The segue mercifully popped into her sleep-deprived mind, lending some justification to the random inconsequentiality it had chosen to pick up on. 

“Izzy.” He canted his head. “Really.”

“It’s short for ‘Isabelle,’” she said evenly. “You want me to help you off the record then you’re going to have to get used to using it. What, exactly, is it you want me to do?”

The question seemed to catch him unawares for a heartbeat, perhaps because of how unexpectedly she’d transitioned from one topic to the next. He recovered so swiftly that Izzy had to ask herself if she’d imagined the flicker of surprise to begin with.

“You have the lists,” he clarified with a nod at the stack of papers at the foot of her bunk. “The lists of possible candidates for Miss Swan and myself. I ask that you allow us to look over them.”

“What makes you think that will get you to find your drift partner any sooner?”

“If we can at least narrow down some choices - ”

“What looks good on paper won’t necessarily work in the field,” Izzy said sharply. “You of all people should know that.”

She regretted the words the instant they’d slipped from her. Gold’s hopeful vulnerability abruptly dropped, and his face hardened into something distant and cold again.

“Right.” The word was hard, clipped, and hollow, spoken with barely any inflection. Izzy realized with dismay that she’d driven him back into his shell. “Apologies, Miss French. I needn’t have disturbed you.”

“N-no, wait. I didn’t mean - ”

Gold was already lurching into the hallway with his distinctive, uneven gait. Izzy hurried back into her quarters to snatch the lists off her bed and was back out and running after him half a minute later.

“I’m sorry,” she said frantically, rushing to keep up with him. For a man with a limp, he could move remarkably fast when he wanted to. “Really. I didn’t mean that.”

“No?” He halted, lips twisting into a mocking smile. “Well, I’m _sorry,_ then. I didn’t let you finish. What was it you _intended_ to say, pray tell?”

God but Izzy _loathed_ the scorn in his voice. She resisted the urge to call it a lost cause and return to her underused bed right then and there. Instead she sucked in a deep breath and silently rehearsed a more delicate way of phrasing what it was she’d _meant_ to say.

“I _mean.”_ She endeavored to keep her voice as measured and composed as humanly possible. “You know how long and complicated a process it is to find a co-pilot. We don’t have the luxury of time on our side. Everyone’s working off instinct, _especially_ you and Emma. That’s all we have to go off of.” Her tone softened. “I can’t imagine how difficult it would be for you, having to let someone else in.”

“Oh, _please.”_ Gold looked away, scorn stark in the spat-out word. “I’ve already had one heart-to-heart today, dearie. I don’t think I’m physically capable of having another.”

Izzy’s fragile patience abruptly ran out.

“You wanted your list. Here.” She pressed the requested papers into his hands. He obviously wasn’t planning to be accommodating, at least not today. 

He fumbled with them and nearly dropped them, but Izzy had already begun to retreat back to a safer, more comfortable space where she might _finally_ be able to close her eyes and _sleep._

\--

It was past eight when Izzy awoke again. She was painfully aware of the fact that, yes, her internal clock was hopelessly turned about at this point. It didn’t much matter to her - the kaiju had a nasty habit of emerging from the Breach at truly unholy hours of the morning, so Izzy had known she’d be signing her circadian rhythms away when she’d first enrolled to be part of the Jaeger Program. She’d known, and she hadn’t much cared at the time, but _damn_ if all those sleepless nights weren’t beginning to weigh on her.

She was up and functioning in less than five minutes. She automatically reached for her clipboard and was momentarily confused when she couldn’t find - _oh. Right._ She’d handed it off to Gold, hadn’t she?

What had she done _that_ for? It had been against her better judgment, she could remember that much. Had he just become so abrasive that…?

Izzy didn’t bother asking herself any more questions. There wasn’t any point in wondering. There _was_ a point in going out and actually _looking_ for Gold, however, so she left to do exactly that.

She didn’t have to look very long. The Kwoon was among the first few places she visited, and sure enough, she found him there, along with Emma and a fair number of truly filthy obscenities spouting from between the two of them, all of a frankly quite creative nature. 

“We’re running out of _goddamn time,_ Gold,” Emma was saying angrily. She was sitting against the wall, poring over the names on her list. “We can’t _afford_ to be picky here.”

“Oh, so forgive me if I’m not overly eager to risk permanent brain damage from a poor match!” Gold snapped. He rustled some of the papers, scanning them yet again. His eyes darted up and down the list, though apparently to no avail, because he growled out a low noise of frustration before he dashed them to the floor.

“Hey!” Izzy protested in an absurdly indignant tone she didn’t even realize she was capable of. 

Both of them glanced up, startled, neither apparently having heard her approach. Emma looked apprehensive at the interruption, but Gold merely seemed annoyed.

“Is there something you wanted, Miss French?” he asked, very obviously not the least bit interested in anything she wanted. 

“I...just wanted to know what was happening,” she improvised. “If you’ve had any luck.”

“So far?” Emma flopped back to lean against the wall and draped her elbows across the tops of her knees. “Nothing. Even the names I _do_ recognize...they’d be no good.” She flung the papers to the ground with disgust and began to knead her brow with both hands. “This is a nightmare.”

“Not yet, it isn’t,” Gold responded coolly. He didn’t even lift his glare from his own candidate list. “The nightmare would be when we try drifting for real and very nearly end up killing ourselves.”

Izzy raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment on that - particularly _liberal_ phraseology on his part.

Emma sighed and rolled her eyes to glare at the ceiling. “Thanks, Mr. Positive.”

“M-maybe I can help?” Both heads swiveled to look at her, and Izzy shifted beneath their twin inquisitive stares. “I assembled those lists personally. If anyone would be able to pin down a good match, it’d be me.”

“Oh, very good,” sneered Gold humorlessly. “Except, if you’ll remember, we’ve _been_ going through these lists of yours, and you’ve seen for yourself how well that’s worked out.”

“I’m not going to sit here and do nothing!” Izzy snapped. He’d been opening up to her, he’d been acting almost - well, _nice,_ and now he was back to his embittered, abrasive, _stupid_ self. It irked her to no end; couldn’t he make up his _mind?_ It wasn’t as if she particularly _enjoyed_ spending every interaction with him wondering which version of Gold she’d be dealing with. “But short of testing _me,_ there’s no alternative!”

Everyone fell quiet, taken aback by quiet, respectful Officer French’s outburst. Izzy couldn’t blame them. She hadn’t meant to be so terribly _loud_ about it.

“There’s an idea,” Emma said thoughtfully, breaking the stillness.

 _“What?”_ hissed Gold, snapping his glower around to her. “You _can’t_ be serious.”

“I-I wasn’t?” Izzy raised both hands and started to back away. “Being serious, I mean. My name’s not even on the list, s-so I couldn’t even if I _wanted_ to - ” 

“Actually, it is, if you wanna get technical about it.” Emma flipped the list over and pointed at the paper’s header. “First name you see, really.”

 _“What makes you think - ”_ Gold began hotly.

“Don’t have much of a choice, do you?” Emma cut him off with a shrug and a supination of one hand. “She’s here, she’s willing - you _are_ willing, aren’t you?” The last question was directed at Izzy with the faintest sheen of worry coloring her words.

“I, uh.” 

Gold’s eyes bored into her. She couldn’t be entirely sure he was challenging her or trying to warn her away, but if he wasn’t going to tell her outright, she’d make up her mind for herself like she always had.

“It’s worth a shot,” Izzy said finally. Emma made a vaguely satisfied sound as she stood.

“You remember how to engage in proper combat, I presume.” Gold hooke fingers around one of nearest combat staffs and tossed it to her without warning. Izzy caught it deftly.

“I do.”

Again, she tried to decipher the look in his eyes. There was a shade of hostility there, but that had always been present in the way he stood and how he twitched nervously whenever anyone came too near. But this time she could have sworn she detected a pale wash of curiosity there as well.

He arched an eyebrow in implicit challenge.

“You want I should keep score?” Emma asked she gathered Izzy’s papers and started to get out of the ring.

“Oh, there’s no need.” Gold’s voice was steely. He sounded, Izzy thought fleetingly, more like Marshal Mills in that moment than he did the composed if anxious man she’d escorted to the Shatterdome. “We should be able to keep count well enough.”

He offered no warning to begin before he surged forward and attacked.

Izzy dodged nimbly and sprang backwards. She’d watched him fight every day since she’d brought him here. She knew how his combat style worked, and she _definitely_ had that advantage.

Unfortunately, Gold seemed to have taken that into account. While he’d always maintained a consistency in how he liked to turn his opponents’ targeting of his obvious injury against them, this time he struck out purely on the offensive. And, what was more, he moved _quick._ Izzy barely had enough time to register his new strategy, let alone work out one of her own. 

She couldn’t think between the burst of feints, jabs, and swings - she couldn’t even strike out on her own, forced back and back and back until she was cornered, struggling to defend herself.

Until, in one vicious movement, Gold pinned her staff down with the haft of his, the tip aimed directly at her neck.

“One-zero.” There was that smirk again, a pleased veneer over something savagely satisfied, the same one he wore upon besting Emma. Confidence. Triumph.

Izzy was still trapped in the corner, so there was really only one way to go. She ducked back and twisted her staff, still trapped as it was beneath his, to send its end pointing at the ground before jabbing up so sharply and enthusiastically that she nearly caught him on the chin.

“One-one,” she corrected him quietly. Fresh, aggressive determination surged into his eyes as he struck out again. This time Izzy was ready, able to turn some of his attacks back at him and work herself out of the corner. But he was moving, if it was even _possible,_ quicker than before, the wood of their staffs clacking together at a frighteningly swift cadence. A blur of blows pushed Izzy onto one knee and a well-placed strike to her midriff took care of the rest. Gold’s staff halted hardly a handsbreath from her body, but she didn’t flinch.

“Two-one,” he growled.

Then a rush of clarity hit, and Izzy understood why his strategies weren’t the same as before: he wasn’t holding back. He had pulled out all the stops. She wasn’t testing him; _he_ was testing _her!_

So, logically, all she had to do was push _back._

The staffs _clacked_ viciously together as they began again, and now Izzy had begun to mirror his movements, bobbing and weaving until she saw her window, spun and took it - 

Two-two, tied up, and now they weren’t even keeping verbal track anymore. _Whack whack crack wham_ \- she’d begun to push Gold into the same corner he’d pressed her into - _crack whack_ \- he deflected and tried to slip around, out of the trap, only she’d planned for that little evasive maneuver and was able to get a strike on his undefended left side. Three-two.

He tore at her with renewed vigor, practically snarling as he dipped and dodged, then lunged unexpectedly, looped his staff under her legs, and brought her to the floor in one ferocious, fluid movement. 

Three-three, tied up once more, and in hardly a heartbeat they had started up again. 

There was no time to think anymore. Izzy resorted to pure instinct. Block, block, jab, feint - it didn’t work, but she didn’t expect it to - back, back, forward, back, _now block, quick -_

It didn’t feel like a fight anymore. It was just reflex, raw and rare, the two weaving in and out and around each other. Izzy couldn’t even remember to be nervous or wary or calculating anymore. 

Then Gold made the mistake of trying to jar the rhythm and took one last desperate strike toward her exposed right side - 

Izzy was ready for it.

Quicker than she thought it was possible for her to move, her staff arced down and left and up again, she jerked sideways, and Gold’s staff was sent flying.

She’d disarmed him.

For an instant, both of them stood in appalled silence.

“Holy shit,” said Emma. 

They both looked at Emma.

She no longer looked bored or fatigued, but was sitting bolt upright with her eyes wide. Her mouth worked for a second before she simply shook her head. “Yeah. That’s all I got. Holy… _shit.”_

Izzy forced herself to look Gold in the face. There was an odd blend of contradicting emotions there - shock, fear, confusion, unease mingled with wavering hope. He took a step backward. Then another.

“Mr. Gold,” Izzy began gently.

“Don’t,” he said roughly. He looked like he had several stipulations he’d like to add, but Emma got there first.

“Oh, _come on!”_ She bounded to her feet. “Gold, we have a solution, _right here._ You and her - hell, even _I_ could tell! You’re drift compatible.”

“You _felt_ it.” As alarming a conclusion as it was, Izzy had to admit Emma was right. It felt...right. It felt better than right. “I know you did.”

“She’s probably a whole hell of a lot better a match than I am, let me tell you.” Emma took in Gold’s expression, disbelief and lingering outrage and something else Izzy couldn’t interpret. Frustration, possibly. Or fear. “What’s the deal, here? I thought you _wanted_ this to work.”

Izzy had a nagging suspicion of why he was so obviously reluctant to accept what had just happened when he’d had no such issues with his potential compatibility with Emma, but she had no idea how to voice it tactfully, especially with how agitated he was rapidly growing.

“Look, you don’t have to like it.” Emma was starting to get frustrated from Gold’s lack of input. “You just need to know if it’ll work if you two drift tomorrow instead of me.” She glowered at him until he jerked his head to glare back. “Will it?”

A muscle in Gold’s jaw worked for a minute. Izzy could understand the hesitance and terror, but she could not for the _life_ of her understand why he was so _angry._

“Yes,” he grunted out at last. It sounded almost pained. “It should.”

“Then I’ll tell the Marshal.” Emma whipped out of the room faster than either of them could argue.

“All right,” Izzy said fiercely, rounding on Gold as soon as Emma was out of earshot. _“What?”_

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“What about this bothers you?” He tried to turn away and stump out of the room, but Izzy darted ahead of him and blocked his way. Her jaw was set, her eyes fierce. “I thought you wanted a different drift partner. Am I not good enough, not what you expected - what?”

“I didn’t think it’d be so - ” One of Gold’s hands fluttered as he trailed off, unable to elaborate. He no longer looked furious or intimidating. He looked - _scared._

“What? You don’t want to let anyone else into your head, I know. I know everything’s moving fast and that’s _normal - ”_

“No, that’s - that’s not it!” He was shaking? He was _shaking._ Izzy gulped, remembering the last time this had started happening. He wasn’t a particularly heavy man - he didn’t look to have a spare ounce of flesh on him - but the Kwoon was a long way from the research department, and she didn’t want to have to half-carry, half-drag him there _again._

“Then what?”

“I don’t - why’d it - why’d it have to be _you?”_ he spat.

For a brief second, Izzy didn’t entirely know how to respond to that.

Then her expression closed.

“Gee, thanks.”

“I don’t mean like _that.”_ Gold was pacing now, anxiety sparking off him in waves. He scooped up his discarded combat staff and began using it as an improvised walking stick, hands rubbing across the worn-smooth surface. “You’re not a Ranger, French. You didn’t sign your life onto this. I don’t want to drag you into - not after Neal - ”

He swallowed, hard, staring at the floor, and didn’t seem to be able to go on. 

“You’re worried about my _safety?”_ Izzy was incredulous.

“I don’t know what’s worse, after he died,” Gold confessed quietly. “The noise…” His eyes flicked up to her, then down again. “...or the quiet. And I don’t know which I’d rather have.”

Izzy remembered full well what had happened last time she’d tried this, but the poor man seemed in dire need of some form of comfort, so she reached out with one hand and placed it on his shoulder. He flinched at the touch, eying her hand as if he couldn’t quite comprehend why she would touch him.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Izzy murmured. “You know why I joined the Program? The reason I’m here in the first place? I wanted to be a pilot. I have for as long as I can remember. So before you think you’re, I don’t know, thrusting me into danger? It was my idea first.” She smiled, and his eyes slowly met hers. “And I know there’s pain there, and loss, and all sorts of things I can’t even begin to understand. But maybe sharing some of that burden is the first step to getting past it.”

 _“You_ shouldn’t need to.” Gold’s face contorted; he looked like he would prefer to retreat but he held his ground. “It was my mistake. I got him killed. I’m the one who should pay for it.”

“Does it matter? You’re grieving. You’re in pain. The _least_ I can do is help you.”

“It’s - not just grief.” Now he was wearing one of his more familiar sardonic half-smirks. “There’s a reason not many would drift with me. There’s worse in this head. I doubt you’d want to come near it if you knew.”

Izzy considered.

“Well, the worst I’ve done is lie to my dad about future career plans, and that was in high school,” she deadpanned. “So, that considered, we should balance each other out pretty well.”

Gold stared at her incredulously for a moment. Then, gradually, the corners of his mouth lifted into a wobbly, confused smile.

“You’re a very unusual woman, Miss French.”

She let out a comically dramatic sigh. “I’ve told you,” she said. “It’s ‘Izzy’.”


	15. Chapter 15

Emma didn’t even check the clock when she dropped off last night. She’d known it had been late and hadn’t cared; she fell asleep with the pleased glow of someone who had set off earlier in the day to accomplish something and succeeded.

Of course, that didn’t mean she was really a morning person now.

It took her longer than usual to get her bearings when she woke with a start to the obnoxious beeping of the usual eight o'clock mission control summons. Panic overtook her when she recalled Mills’ ultimatum - which, in Emma’s mind, had equated to something along the lines of _drift or die, sucker_ \- before she remembered the _second_ Big Event of the previous day. Her heart slowed and she dropped back into the warmth of her bunk. It was all right. It was fine. She wouldn’t have to drift with Gold.

Still. Slow morning.

It took almost a full hour for Emma to stumble out of her quarters and even then, she stayed caught in that disorienting in-between state that left her fully capable of functioning purely on routine while half-wondering if she would even remember any of this later.

She was halfway to the Kwoon before remembering that, oh right, Gold had gotten his Far Superior drift partner and so they wouldn’t be running any compatibility trials today, at least not until later. No, instead they’d be doing a test run with Gold’s old, patched-up jaeger.

Lucky her, Emma had caught something of a break today.

The mess was buzzing with a mid-frequency sort of excitement, in which the tables were more densely packed with chatter than they were with food or people but it was all of the muttered-and-whispered variety, low and careful. Emma paid it no mind, not even when she sat down and began picking through her overcooked breakfast. Her stomach didn’t really register the food as she automatically ate, alone as usual.

“Hear they’re running a drift test today.”

Emma jumped when Mary sat down on the bench opposite her, seemingly full of that good old morning chat and cheer. 

_Oh boy._

“Uh…” Emma couldn’t think of what else to do, so she merely lifted her shoulders evasively. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Not just any drift test.” This time it was _David_ who sat across her, beside his wife and pilot. “A drift test with _Spindle Gauntlet._ They _restored_ Gold’s old jaeger. Can you believe it?”

You know what she couldn’t believe? _This._ Emma wasn’t entirely sure how she should process this whole… _thing._ By which she meant _people._ People sitting with her. 

People sitting with her _willingly._

That little strain of logic was just a little too much for Emma’s early-morning head. She scrubbed a hand over her tired eyes in a futile attempt to wake herself up a bit more and wondered who she’d need to ask to get ahold of some coffee.

“Makes sense,” Mary was replying. “Gold’s one of the few pilots to survive after his jaeger got torn up. If any old pilots would be coming back, I imagine it’d be the one that lived.”

“He lived because he _ran,”_ snorted David. “He got himself chasing the R.A.B.I.T., out of alignment, so he tried to _run_ and got his co-pilot killed.”

“Wait, what?” Emma, who’d begun to doze, hastily jolted herself back to the present. Rather, her chin slipped off from where it was propped up on her close fist and jarred her roughly awake again. “Rabbit?”

“Random Access Brain Impulse Trigger,” said Mary, offhand. “What happens when a pilot latches onto a specific memory in the drift. Not a good idea, by the way. Can throw everything out of alignment.”

“We’re lucky we haven’t so far.” David took that as a sign to put one arm over Mary’s shoulder and hug her closer to him. Emma shut her eyes and began massaging her eyelid with the heel of her palm. She _so_ did not have the mindset or stomach for their shmoopy couple-y habits, at least not currently. “Latching onto traumatic memories especially. That’s discouraged.”

“Of course it is,” replied Emma dismissively. She couldn’t imagine when that sort of thing _would_ be encouraged, except maybe in some kind of bullshit therapy session. Her mind was working a little better now and she was starting to become aware of the fact that she wasn’t all that hungry. Not all that hungry, but her insides were still churning. Why, then? Nervousness? Worry? What did she have to be nervous about? _She_ wouldn’t be stepping into any giant robots to link brains with a stranger today.

“Speaking of traumatic memories,” David muttered idly.

Emma once again forced herself to live in the present, following the pilot’s gaze to the slight figure of Gold himself. He was accompanied, much to her surprise, by his potential drift partner, who seemed to be encouraging him to eat. He was visibly reluctant to do so, but complied anyway. Then she directed him to a table. The same one as Emma’s.

This time Emma groaned aloud for real. Oh, she did _not_ have time for this in the morning.

Sure enough, Izzy sat down beside Emma, and Gold on her far side. Emma chanced a quick glance at his face and saw her own distaste mirrored there, which actually served to improve her mood. _Slightly._ So he was grouchy because he was being made to _socialize._

What could she say? Emma could relate, and the thought that this was probably the _one_ other thing they had in common almost coaxed a laugh out of her.

“So you two are testing in Spindle today?” Mary asked in that too-bright tone of hers. Always trying to be friendly. Well, all right, that wasn’t such a terrible thing. It just wasn’t Emma’s style. If she had an issue with someone she _told_ them, straight-up. More honest.

“That’s what the Marshal said,” said Izzy, nodding. Gold, meanwhile, huffed quietly and hunched his shoulders a little more securely around himself. Trying to isolate himself from the conversation. Okay, so Emma could empathize with that too.

Like, a _little._

“Best of luck,” Mary offered.

“Thank you. I’m sure it’ll go fine. Right?” Izzy nudged Gold lightly, but even that tiny brush of contact elicited a tiny jump, the anxiety roiling off him.

“Right,” he said shortly, and went back to his meal.

_Picture of friendliness._

Though, really, Emma couldn’t really blame him. For _this,_ anyway. The man was nervous. She got that. Hell, she could even understand it.

The Marshal had been, well. She hadn’t really seemed all that _happy_ that Gold had managed to find an alternate drift partner, especially since it meant Emma was still an unresolved issue. Nor had she been particularly _overjoyed_ that, yet again, one of her most dependable officers might be exchanging her job at the Marshal’s side for danger on the frontlines. And yet they’d both known that if Gold and Izzy could drift successfully the first time, at least the issue of Spindle Gauntlet would be fixed. So Mills had okay-ed the whole thing, albeit with her usual sternness and strange resolve in keeping up the staring contests she couldn’t seem to resist holding with Emma.

“This whole drift deal,” David was saying. Emma shook herself. She hadn’t been paying attention to the snatches of conversation at all. “Cutting it a bit close, aren’t they? It’s, what? Two, three days until the next predicted event?”

“Well, you know, it’s hard,” Emma broke in and tried to focus back on the discussion. “Finding someone you’re willing to share your head with. Just because you two had it easy, being married and all, doesn’t mean everyone does.”

David and Mary exchanged a glance but didn’t say anything, though Emma could have sworn she picked up a hint of something curiously melancholy there. The two of them, Mary especially, were so aggressively optimistic that those mournful traces made their expressions look - _off._

Emma wearily opted to ignore it. It was unsettling, and there was no point in disturbing _that_ little detail if she could help it.

And she _could_ help it.

_Really._

She jabbed her fork a little moodily into the yellow-orange sludge the cool kids were calling ‘eggs’ these days.

No one spoke.

Okay. Sure. Fine. Emma threw down her fork and sighed. “All right, what’s eating you?”

Whatever their response to that question might have been, Emma never got to hear it, because pretty soon there were flashing lights and loudspeaker announcements and it was all very impressive, but was there _really_ a need to raise this much fuss over a drift test drill? There was something about the two potential pilots needing to report to their jaeger and how everyone else should be on standby in case of any trouble and _wait, trouble?_

Emma did not like to think of what _trouble_ could be spawned from a simple drift test, but hey, it’s not like she’d know.

It’s not like she _wanted_ to know, either.

At the announcement, Gold had gone a shade paler but didn’t so much as flinch, eyes trained resolutely at the table as he continued to not eat. Izzy muttered something at him and he pushed himself to his feet and hobbled out without a second word or glance to any of them. After a moment’s pause, Izzy followed. 

Emma followed Mary and David to one of the viewing decks, craning her neck to take in the awesome size of Spindle Gauntlet, the legendary jaeger that was, ironically, more famous for its considerably less-than-legendary death than anything it had done while it was still active.

 _“It died running,”_ was the common saying, and Emma had heard it often enough. She remembered the night she got the news quite clearly, having been roused from her quarters at the Academy in the earliest morning hours to be told get dressed, something black, there’s been a crew down. They made all the students and trainees watch the news report and the video of Spindle Gauntlet going down on the coastline of Anchorage, practically in shreds, leaving a smoking heap of torn scrap and shaken faith. One of humanity’s prized defenders had gone down. The monsters had scored a point in the victory column, and it would only escalate from there. Spindle’s defeat had been the start of the jaegers’ fall as the slow, inexorable destruction of each war god-machine tore into humanity’s hope a little deeper.

(She also remembered hearing news that one pilot had survived, and the awful, twisting guilt that had curdled in her gut when she’d privately hoped it was Neal.)

(And the ensuing despair when she learned it was not.)

She still remembered how Spindle had been little more than twisted up steel and smoke when it had gone crashing down on the coast. She’d also known well enough what it looked like before the kaiju had ripped it a new one, courtesy of Neal, and she had to admit that the restoration team had done its job well. She could hardly tell that it had ever been so badly damaged in the first place.

Spindle was of a slender, graceful build, equipped for speed rather than brute strength like many of the jaegers. It lacked the hardcore firepower of plasmacasters or missiles, but had the twin fangblades on the outside edge of each wrist to compensate for the absence of any truly heavy weaponry. It was geared primarily for melee combat, and it did that job well. Emma wondered if it actually had any firing capabilities, or if they’d left those sorts of things to the other jaegers. It’d be a massive technical failing if that turned out to be true; close quarters combat could get nasty if there wasn’t a long-range weapon to fall back on. Hell, even the Mark I jaegers were stocked with mortar cannons and the like, and _their_ build and mission statement had been more along the lines of “fight the monster or die trying,” often pretty _literally._ Those hadn’t even included the courtesy of escape pods like how later models did.

Emma’s eyes wandered to the simple crest on the jaeger’s shoulder, looking to be nothing more than a thin yellow line striking through dull silver concentric circles. Neal had explained the meaning to her once, but all she could remember was that the yellow line represented the needle. He’d said something about smallness and cleverness and slipping between the chinks in the armor, but Emma couldn’t recall much of it.

She gulped a bit when she realized that the other pilots had gathered along with her, Mary, and David, including the infamous Sentinel Fury team. Neither said or acknowledged anyone else, but leaned against the railing on the same viewing deck a good ten feet away.

“Hey, rook.”

Emma jumped. She hadn’t heard someone coming up behind her. She turned, and nearly jumped again.

“Hi,” was all she could get out at the moment, because _holy shit_ these were the pilots of _Omega Red._ Even before she saw the crest on their jackets, the splash of red in the shape of a wolf’s head, they were unmistakable. Ruby Lucas and Graham Humbert were practically household names as the pilots of the only Mark V jaeger in existence. Anyone who glanced at a news heading or flipped past a news channel knew their names.

And they were _here._

 _Talking_ to her.

The surreality of the whole thing hit Emma all at once and she needed to reaffirm herself of her own existence for a moment.

“Here to watch the fun?” David leaned over to address the two pilots, unfazed.

(Of course he wouldn’t be the least bit shocked. Why would he be? He’s worked with them in the past, almost certainly, and Emma was just some _rook - )_

“Might as well.” Lucas crossed her arms as she propped herself carelessly on the railing, back to the jaeger. “Heard there’s an awful big fuss about it.”

“So you’re the newest recruit?” Humbert asked Emma.

“Uh-huh,” she said, entirely unsure how to go about this new encounter.

“Graham.” He held out his hand.

She took it mechanically. “Emma. Uh. Swan.”

“Good to meet you, Emma. Swan.” He seemed the polar opposite of his partner, who was now perched on the viewing deck railing as she chatted with Mary and David, blissful nonchalance practically radiating off her. Humbert - well, _Graham,_ then - was quieter, warmer. He said nothing else, but merely looked up at Spindle Gauntlet expectantly.

Any further conversation was cut short by the low hum-roar of the jaeger as it rumbled to life. 

“Here we go,” whispered Mary.

“Oh _shit,”_ said Emma.


	16. Chapter 16

Being back in a drivesuit after ten years away was rather like stepping into an old skin, knotted with a memory he didn’t want to look at. These drivesuits weren’t the sleek dark gray shot through with yellow like Spindle’s old ones. Those had been lost in the program’s fall, in the big jaeger’s fall, a full decade and a million years ago. The drivesuit he wore now was battered and worn, cast in a simple blue-black color scheme. 

It was good. He liked that. He preferred that. It made it easier for him to mentally decouple himself from the memories of Neal now that he didn’t have the immediate color association.

It was good.

He preferred that.

It was good.

It was.

Gold had been among the last to enjoy the glory days of the Jaeger Program, back when every jaeger crew had their own team running preparation and maintenance, when pilots boasted a near-celebrity status, when the jaegers were unstoppable forces of nature, when they’d done such a good job at hammering back the kaiju that the monsters could be reduced to playground games and toy brands and movie franchises.

All those associations were in place, thicker than habit: the rush of power that came with knowing he was about to be stepping into nothing less than a demigod, invincible to whatever came through the Breach. Now they were tempered, cluttered with fear and loss and regret and the flash of blinding terror that prefaced the sharp snap of a jaeger’s jaws crunching over meat and bone. 

The jaegers had stopped being gods when Spindle first fell. The program had only been humanity’s best hope until it wasn’t, and the Wall of Life was a Far Better Chance for everyone.

It was time to step back into that drivesuit and that jaeger and that world.

And Gold didn’t know what to do. 

The Conn-Pod was mercifully empty when he got to it so he took right hemisphere, partially out of habit and partially because it just made an oblique sort of sense. If Miss French - _Izzy,_ he had to mentally correct himself - was going to be his co-pilot, she would need to take the more supportive role of left hemisphere. He couldn’t be certain his leg would be able to handle the strain, but he hadn’t made any terribly vigorous use of it in a good decade or so. He’d work through that pain just fine. In any case, it wasn’t the physicality of the task that worried him. 

He ran fingertips over the contours of Spindle’s refurbished interior, the familiar and unfamiliar lines of steel and warnings emblazoned in red text in a dozen different languages. How does one sequester themselves in a safer, superior mindset when they’ve spent ten years languishing in their own grief.

He grimaced. Self-pitying bastard. Whose fucking _grief_ did he deserve? Not Neal’s. Certainly not his own.

 _“Both pilots on deck,”_ the LOCCENT officer’s voice fuzzed through the comm. Izzy smiled broadly at him as she entered the Pod and took her place at the left hemisphere as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Ready?” she asked gently.

Gold considered.

“No,” he said, decisive. “But it appears we have little choice.”

Izzy laughed at that, which startled him for a minute. He didn’t understand how she could be so relaxed and easy, unless she was simply that skilled at hiding her own nerves, but there’d been no hint of that before. Izzy was easier to read than a book - she left herself open like that. Besides, if she was nervous, he’d know soon enough.

The helmets went on, then, and there was no further time for small talk. In less than a minute they’d be in each others’ heads.

_Hold it together._

He’d _need_ to. He’d lived with the _everything_ for ten years after Neal’s death, and Gold wasn’t going to make Izzy suffer through that as well, not if he could help it. This was _his_ memory and _his_ pain, and she didn’t need to have a part in it. 

His stomach clenched, his mouth dry. He could hear his heart thundering in his ears.

Eyes shut. Eyes open. Focus. Breathe.

_“Begin neural handshake in fifteen...fourteen...”_

He hadn’t stepped into anyone’s head but Neal’s. That natural partnership had its pitfalls. This wasn’t going to work. This wasn’t going to _work._

_“...thirteen...twelve…”_

He was just a ragged old _washup,_ for fuck’s sake. A washup and a coward and a failure.

_“...eleven...ten…”_

What did they even _want_ him for?

_“...nine...eight…”_

Izzy was going to enter his head and be horrified, disgusted at what she saw. He knew it. He knew it before it even happened.

_“...seven...six…”_

“It’s going to be all right.”

Gold’s head jerked around to look at her in utter disbelief. She smiled at him, confident and comforting.

“You don’t know that,” he breathed back.

“I have faith in you,” she said simply.

He wanted to snarl back a preemptive apology, but his throat had constricted and there was no time for words, there was no time to double back on the _hell_ he was surely about to unleash upon the both of them and all he could do was grimace and brace himself against the slope of the Conn-Pod’s motion rigs and squeeze his eyes shut and pull in a sharp intake of breath.

_“Neural handshake...initiated.”_

There was no more time. They both stiffened at the shock of the drift tugging at their minds, spooling them into a collective neural landscape. Gold kept his eyes shut, held his mind steady, and plunged in. 

The effect was churning, freezing, and instantaneous.

They both gasped at the shock of the inexplicable tingling, shifting sensation, that indescribable tidal force that drove itself purely, relentlessly into their brainwaves, twisting twin consciousnesses deftly, sculpting, plunging, torqueing, beyond the range of physical senses but it was _cold_ with new sensation, underwater-clouded and thickening at the ridges, all that neuronal flotsam and jetsam and assorted varia simultaneously breaking down and reforming in elegant synchronicity and asynchronicity and he fell into that rhythm with a disjointed if practiced ease, navigating the detached him-and-not feeling that the first foray into the drift always left, because he was _him_ but he was _not,_ he was becoming two people blending into one and into a larger body, two minds collating into one, the body of a giant machine responding in turn, and there was a sense of alarm and resistance to the pure, nonlinear shake-shock of the mind-meld process and he could not longer tell if that resistance belonged to him or to the mind he was now sharing but it didn’t really matter in the end, given their newly-acquired contact and it was easy to borrow memory and make the transaction between two sets of recollections despite the quiver of feedback, static, singing a peculiar chorus in blue-dyed brightness.

At first it was fragments. Then it was longer strings, and then - 

_\- her father hadn’t wanted her to join the Corps, said it was too dangerous, my girl -_

_\- Neal didn’t understand when Nick told him his mother wouldn’t be coming home, there’d been a horrible accident -_

_\- you’re moving through the program remarkably quickly, Miss French, we’re so proud of you Neal’s first drift had been easy and quick and that’s how Nick learned about Emma you’ve got to come home my girl it’s just too dangerous out there Papa stop you’re latching onto a memory you can’t -_

They gasped, staggered backwards in unison, their minds flowed and fed into one another in glorious simultaneity. Their shoulders rose and fell in union, composures sliding back into place, both very aware that they’d essentially had each other’s condensed origin stories uploaded directly into their nervous systems. Those thoughts lingered, present and unexplored, but there’d be time enough to sift through those shared memories later. He reached out to touch into her mind and reveled at its blazing strength. It was difficult to conceptualize the scope of an entire human mind in articulate, linear terms, but he gleaned a distinct impression, a wash of sun-yellows and pale blues and a toughened, hard-bright glow. He could feel her mind feeding itself into his, gathering what she could of him, and for a moment he had to stop and force his steel trap of a mind to unspool itself, become truly open and vulnerable to exploration for the first time in ten years.

 _“Neural handshake steady,”_ The digital scratch of Leroy’s voice assured them. _“Both hemispheres calibrated.”_

They lifted their right hands in unison, then their left. Minds locked. Systems in-synch. They had the same body now. The flowing chain of thought-memory-stuff coalesced into a solid directive, aimed at the body of the machine they shared.

They raised their fists in position, and Spindle obeyed. 

_“Okay, let’s try a salute.”_

He could feel her borrowing from his memories to silently determine the logistics as they raised arms and put fists to palms. The great machine responded perfectly, saluting the LOCCENT mission control station. The connection was strong, their minds blended well. It was working.

A foreign emotion wormed its way into his head at this new development. It took him a long moment to recognize it for hope. Even then, he wasn’t entirely sure if it was a product of their unexpected success or if her blunt optimism and faith had planted the emotion there, but the distinctions between them were blurred enough for him to decide that he didn’t care. It was something he hadn’t felt for an unbelievable while, not since Neal -

_“Papa, stop! You’re latching onto a memory! You can’t - ”_

“Neal!”

The word tore from his throat before he could prevent it. Something in the jaeger shuddered; both of them jarred sharply in the Conn-Pod as their minds were wrenched out of the space they were meant to occupy, scattering, disordered. The pattern was broken, the synchronization fragmented, disengaging, splitting at the fucking seams.

 _“Woah, woah!”_ Leroy’s shock crackled through the comm. _“Right hemisphere, you are_ way _out of alignment!”_

“No… _no.”_ He was panting, desperately trying to wall the memory off. Neal was beside him, screaming as the kaiju’s jaws closed around him and wrested him from the cockpit…

...no, no, that had been years ago, it was _her_ next to him now, she was struggling to keep hold of her own memories, and that was all his fault…

 _“Bring it in, right hemisphere, come on!”_ Leroy ordered, the effect of his stern words rendered pointless by his complete inability to hide his agitation.

_“It’s piercing the hull!” Neal was starting to panic as the kaiju’s teeth dragged through the cockpit -_

No, no he _wasn’t._ There was no kaiju, Neal was gone, that was past, and he had to _put himself back together._

“Nick!” she bellowed. “Nick, come on! _Stay with me!”_

He shook himself. He was fine, he was safe, that had been _ten years ago._ Neal wasn’t beside him any longer, _she_ was and she was _scared,_ and that wasn’t right. He had to fix that. 

He could fix that.

He could fix precious else, but he _could_ fix _that._

He wrenched all of it back, torqued it viciously to its baseline, its common fucking denominator, and reduced it to its lowest possible state, which was a piece of him lost in the _past_ that could not and _would not_ dismantle him now, he’d already been washed and ruined and torn at every possible turn and there was _nothing more his own mind could take from him._

Now all it had to do was _stand  
the fuck  
back._

And let him _work._

Her mind slid back into his, slow and gentle and carefully persistent, and he let it. Quiet consolations fed back and forth, forming a positive feedback loop that would lock out all else and restore a merciful equilibrium.

They breathed in.

The cockpit was sealed. No water rushed in. No teeth tore through metal and scrap. It was done. It was past.

They breathed out.

 _“Right hemisphere coming back into alignment,”_ Leroy said approvingly, not at all succeeding in masking his relief over the comm. _“All right, good, good. Close call there, Spindle, but you’re holding in place.”_

Gradually his breathing calmed with the rest of him. His heart stopped beating furiously against the interior of his ribcage. He brought his mind back to himself with calculated detachment, focusing solely on his memories and neglecting Neal’s. He knew she had felt them, walked through them, but her mind was startlingly adept at holding itself strong and serene. The panic had struck him and she had kept a cool head; she’d hard-bolted her mind and made it static, inert, practically locked it into place to keep her co-pilot with her. 

That was good. That had anchored him. 

A final long, slow sigh and he was collected again. He didn’t _shut out_ Neal’s memories, not wholly, but he didn’t pay any further great attention to them. For her sake, if nothing else, he had to carry out the rest of the trial run without any more mishaps. They followed each command issued by the LOCCENT control easily enough, but he could sense her worry and he knew she could sense his in conjunction with the undercurrent of self-directed rage that he’d allow himself to slip so easily.

_“All right, Spindle, you’re set to release from the drift.”_

Both Rangers trembled as they stepped out of the mind-meld landscape and back into their own separate heads. The disconnect always came to be something of a jolt. He’d almost become accustomed to sharing his mind again. She took a while longer to recover, breathing a little too hard and leaning a little too heavily on the walls of the Conn-Pod once the locking systems had loosed them both.

“You all right?” Gold asked quietly. They were supposed to be heading out, but fuck it - Mills could wait a minute while Izzy got her wits back. She nodded breathlessly and tried to get back to exiting the Pod, but Gold put a hand to her shoulder and steadied her. “Give yourself a minute. It takes some getting used to.”

“I’m fine.” She shrugged off the support and continued walking anyway, though she flashed him a grateful smile as she did so. “I’ve run the simulator before, you know.”

“Doesn’t quite prepare you for the real thing, though, does it?”

Izzy paused, then shook her head.

“No. No, it doesn’t,” she admitted.

“Well, I’ll say one thing - you did astonishingly well, given the circumstances.” They stood waiting for the Conn-Pod doors to unseal and let them out so they could report to the Marshal, probably so they could listen to her warn them about chasing the R.A.B.I.T. and losing control and, all right, so maybe there was a good reason for that, but Gold didn’t need to hear it all over again, especially since the entire debacle had been _his_ fault.

“Really?” They were ghost-drifting ever so vaguely, but Gold could still pick up that her surprise had more to do with how he’d freely given someone a compliment than how well she’d handled herself.

“You brought me back in when I started losing myself. Remarkable foresight in grounding yourself. Well done.” He made an effort to sound casual about the unforgiving lurch that had nearly occurred, but he’d forgotten that ghost-drifting worked both ways. Izzy watched him for a moment before nodding and doing a very poor job at fighting a smile.

“If you say so,” was all she said before the Conn-Pod door locks clicked and the pod slid open. The two started for the LOCCENT center but Gold stopped when a new thought occurred to him.

“What is it?” Izzy turned, puzzled, when she realized he was no longer beside her.

“You, ah.” He frowned at the floor, then at her. “You called me ‘Nick’.”

“So?”

“You’ve never called me ‘Nick.’”

“And you’ve never called me ‘Izzy,’ even though I _keep asking_ you to do so,” she replied, unperturbed, and resumed walking. “Besides, it _worked,_ didn’t it? 

He didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure how to.

“The Marshal’s waiting for us?” Izzy was _completely_ unconcerned about the whole thing: the drifting, the memories, the names, all of it. She’d seen all the pent-up baggage he hadn’t done a terribly good job of hiding, acknowledged it, and moved on, accepting that there was all manner of ugliness and _rage_ hiding beneath his mocking smiles and quiet scowls without a single misgiving. 

Nick followed her into the LOCCENT mission control after only a beat’s hesitation. 

All right. Fine. So he _appreciated_ that about her.

He was also _much_ better at hiding the urge to smile than she was.


	17. Chapter 17

The trial run had gone successfully with only a minor hiccup. Marshal Mills would never admit it, but that had left her relieved. 

(Also a _smidge_ frustrated that her judgment of Gold and Swan’s drifting capabilities hadn’t been _entirely_ up to scratch.)

(She still wasn’t entirely sure what would have happened had she made them go through with it, but she sincerely doubted it would have run as smoothly as this one.)

(The thought grated at her.)

Regina didn’t bring up any of this. Instead she told the two pilots good job, congratulations, but will you be ready when you have to do it for real? In a situation where everyone involved actually had the money and time to do so, protocol would have demanded the two newest pilots do several exhaustive test runs to cement their compatibility and familiarize themselves with the body of the machine they’d be working with.

Protocol be damned. There was no one around to _care_ about that sort of thing anymore. That much had become clear when this was now the _second_ of Regina’s personal officers to discover they were better suited to the job of pilot. The very idea brought a scowl to her, but it did nothing to dampen the obvious joy of Gold and the French girl, the former of whom was doing a much more effective job at hiding his smugness and secret delight over their success than the latter. The girl couldn’t have been more conspicuous if she _tried,_ the pride practically radiating off her in ecstatic waves. 

Well. She’d always wanted to be a pilot. Regina could comfort herself with that thought before she sent them on a mission that would inevitably result in their _deaths._ But, well, at the very least the French girl would go out knowing she’d fulfilled her dream.

There was no triumph or humor to the thought.

“Ordinarily we’d run several different diagnostics and test runs to ensure you’re both ready when the next event comes,” Regina informed them, ignoring the hard, goading glint in Gold’s eye. She knew well enough what it meant. He was daring her to admit that she’d been wrong. “But we don’t have that sort of time on our side. Unfortunately, we still need to devote our last remaining resources to finding pilots for our final jaeger. I’m sure you understand.”

French nodded brightly, doubtless still riding on the high that came from her first successful drift. Meanwhile, Gold simply shot her a tiny, almost imperceptible inclination of his head. He didn’t break eye contact. Continuing on in hammering in his silent dare, she imagined.

_Petty._

Regina ignored him.

“Good. I want you to check in with Hopper and Whale before getting some rest. You’re part of this team now, and that means you’ll carry your weight come the next event. Understand?”

French’s second nod was equally wordless but more subdued. Gold just shot Regina a withering glance that read very plainly as: _yes, obviously, as I’ve well understood for some time now._

(It was easy to forget he’d run this race before.)

(It might feel recent to him, but to Regina it felt like so _very_ long ago.)

(She’d only been a Ranger herself when it happened, but she remembered news circuits, she remembered the crushing horror of defeat, and less than a year later she got to taste it for herself - )

And memory lane was a bad idea. A _very_ bad idea, Regina reminded herself firmly. No sense in chasing the R.A.B.I.T. when one wasn’t even in a jaeger.

They’d scored one victory - of a sort - today, Regina told herself once they’d all departed and she left the LOCCENT mission control. They’d found a match for one of the jaegers; they were four now, not three, and that was definitely an improvement. Yet Regina found the minor triumph to be of little consolation. The date of the next anticipated kaiju activity was drawing closer by the day, and there was still the matter of Emma Swan. They were no closer to finding her a drift partner than they had been ten years ago, and, once again, the only possibility that had arisen had proven not to be the best possible match. As intertwined with the Gold family as her history was, it seemed that Swan simply wasn’t a strong contender to drift with its remaining member.

“Mills! Hey!”

And speak of the ill-timed devil.

Regina made sure to sigh audibly as she turned to face the other woman jogging to catch up to the Marshal.

“Miss Swan.” 

“Yeah, hey, look.” Swan skidded to a halt just in front of her. “I know we don’t really, ah, get along - ”

That would be an understatement.

“Get to the point.” Regina was tired, in more ways than one. She didn’t have time for this.

“Yeah, okay.” Swan took a deep breath. “Point is, I’m out.”

Regina frowned. “What?”

“You saw that back there. Gold and, uh, what’s-her-name, Izzy, they drifted way better than he and I ever could. There aren’t any others for me to fall back on. I’m useless again, so there’s really not much point in me sticking around.”

“You can’t _leave.”_ Regina frowned sharply. “You’re the last chance we have for - ”

 _“Save_ it,” Swan said harshly. “Like I believe _that._ I’m not _anyone’s_ last chance or, or only hope or _anything,_ all right? I’m a failure who didn’t even make the Academy cut ten years ago. I seriously doubt that’s gonna change now.”

“Don’t you think that if there were any other pilots or trainees alive we wouldn’t have reached out to them by now?” Regina snapped. “You _are_ the only one, because you’re the only one we could find! Probably the only one still alive.”

“Well gee, don’t sugarcoat it.” Unfazed, Swan folded her arms and squared her shoulders. “Makes no difference. I’m dead weight, Mills. You know it and so does everyone else. Just _admit_ it and get it over with.”

“Personal feelings have very little to do with it. The _point_ is that you are _literally_ our only chance left.”

“Then you’re all screwed,” she said simply. “I’m sorry, but you’ve seen me in action. I’m pretty much useless, not to mention basically un-drift-able. The only two people I’ve had the possibility of being compatible with were either taken or just plain bad ideas.”

“We’ll just need to expand our horizons,” the Marshal ground out through gritted teeth. “We _need_ two more pilots, Swan, and you’re the only fresh chance we have of finding them.”

“Would you stop it?” For the first time, a note of distress crept into the other woman’s voice. “Stop - _putting_ all this on _me?_ All this pressure on my success-or-failure? I can’t _do_ it, all right? You’ve seen it yourself!”

“We don’t have the benefit of choice! If we want to have _any_ chance of closing that Breach then we need every resource we can get, Swan! And, like it or not, that makes _you_ a _resource!”_

“I _get_ that - ”

“Do you?” Regina fired back. “The world’s coming to an end. The only choices we have left are the ways in which we die.”

Swan fell silent for a minute. Her resolve faltered a shade, but then her eyes flicked back up to meet Regina’s. Her voice was cold when she replied:

“Why don’t you tell that to the _resources?_ You know, since you seem so desperate to get rid of them.”

Regina didn’t have an answer. Swan didn’t seem to be expecting one. She turned on her heel and had soon disappeared into one of Shatterdome’s many tangled hallways. 

Swan’s question had struck her a little harder than she wanted to admit. And the very worst thing was that Regina couldn’t for the life of her tell if it was because Swan was too far off the mark or right on point.


	18. Chapter 18

_“Kaiju signature rising! Not a drill - repeat, not a drill!”_

Aurora surged awake at the call. She didn’t bother looking at the clock - what would the point of that be? It was early and dark and she didn’t really want to know what ungodly hour the kaiju had emerged at. She was down in the docking bay within a half hour, her fellow pilot at her side.

“We’ve got two signatures,” Mills was telling the assembled pilots. “There’s always the possibility it could be a radio glitch, but it’s more likely that…”

“A double event,” the scientist, Whale cut in. “Our numbers predicted this. We’re looking at a two Category IV kaiju, showed up at the same time. Codenames Banshee and Jorogumo. Estimated to make land here in less than three hours.”

Ruby whistled. “Damn, those things move quick.”

“We’re calling all three available jaegers into action,” the Marshal continued. “Aureola and Sentinel will engage the hostiles, but I want Omega waiting at the miracle mile in case they get pushed back.”

 _Or worse._ The words weren’t spoken, but they hung in the air regardless. There was no avoiding it. That was always a risk with the kaiju, especially considering how many of the program’s number had already fallen. The pilots all exchanged looks but said nothing. They knew the risks. They were prepared to face them.

Lian wound her hand into her fellow pilot’s. Aurora tightened her grip. 

“Any questions?” the Marshal asked, her orders finished.

“You said ‘three jaegers.’” Mary raised a hand as she spoke up. “But I thought we found a drift compatible pair for Spindle? They won’t be joining us?”

“Untrained and uncoordinated,” Mills countered dismissively. “We’ll need them for the final push but I’m hoping we won’t have to use them now. Category IVs are nothing new, even if there are two of them.”

“If we _do_ need them, though?”

“You won’t.” The Marshal’s voice hardened. “I trust that won’t be a problem.”

It made no difference to Aurora. She had her partner’s back and her partner had hers, and that was all that mattered. 

“Suit up and hold the miracle mile,” Mills continued as if there had been no interruption. “We cannot let them reach the city and we _cannot_ let any one of our number fall. We need every last jaeger for our last push.”

Aurora glimpsed the two newest pilots - Gold and...she couldn’t remember the woman’s name - observing the debrief silently, with mixed expressions. The woman seemed torn between relief, fear, and outrage. The washout was more restrained, but even he didn’t seem to be able to completely conceal his annoyance and trepidation. Annoyance over being left out, Aurora guessed, and, conversely, trepidation over the possibility of being called _in._

She shook aside the observation. She narrowed her focus to running mental strategies - each Category IV was bigger than the last, so she and her partner would have to work with what foreknowledge they had.

The rest was all routine and familiarity - suit up, strap in, prepare for the drift. Lock into the Conn-Pod, shut eyes, and step into each others’ heads. 

Open eyes.

Ready.

The helicopters deposited Sentinel alongside Aureola Brave, the ocean waters splashing up to both jaegers’ waist levels. Aureola was larger and heavier-built than Sentinel as a Mark I, and therefore slower-moving. Aurora passed the mental suggestion to her partner, considering taking the lead since the Mark III Sentinel Fury was a much quicker machine, but Lian vetoed it. Separating would make them more susceptible to ambushes. They were stronger standing together.

 _-Also a much bigger target,_ Lian warned.

 _-True,_ Aurora agreed silently.

There wasn’t much to be done. Lian reasoned that they keep a reasonable distance from Aureola to prevent hostiles from taking both jaegers down at once, and Aurora agreed. They spread out.

 _“This is Aureola,”_ David’s voice rang clear over the comm. _“We aren’t picking up any activity in the water.”_

 _“This is Sentinel. We’ve got a negative on any activity as well,”_ Lian confirmed.

Their feed to LOCCENT crackled. _“We’ve got kaiju signatures coming at you from two sides.”_

Aurora continued to scan the horizon through the jaeger’s vision. There were no churning waves, no great ripples of activity. That typically wasn’t a good sign. Kaiju, as monsters went, were generally of the _big thundering_ variety and altogether quite unsubtle. One could usually tell if they were coming from a distance, and yet Lian and Aurora were utterly unable to pinpoint the two monsters that were presumably coming at them.

 _“Aureola’s getting nothing.”_ There was an undercurrent of worry to Mary’s tone, and justifiably so. Aurora wouldn’t admit it to her Marshal, but she knew Lian could detect the low hum of fear niggling at her.

 _“They’re right at your doorstep, Sentinel!”_ Leroy sounded panicked, and the jaeger turned just time to hear the tremendous, ear-splitting roar as the kaiju made its presence known. It burst from its hiding place - stealthy enough to hide _beneath the water?_ \- and smashed into Sentinel Fury full-force.

 _“Hold on, Sentinel, we’re - ”_ Aureola’s promise for assistance dissolved into a startled cry as the second kaiju wrapped itself around one of its legs and _pulled,_ dragging the jaeger beneath the water. Aurora glimpsed it through Sentinel’s vision, but soon she had had time to think of little else besides shaking their own opponent.

The beast was remarkably _smaller_ than any of the Category IV kaiju they’d faced before, making it roughly as tall as the jaeger itself, but it more than made up for its diminutive height with a grossly colossal, fanned-out diameter largely comprised of its long spindly legs, and a speed unmatched by any of the other monsters they’d seen. Lian would have paused to admire how it played to its advantages, ducking and dodging Sentinel’s defensive swipes, had she not been so caught up in working out how to _get rid_ of it.

 _-We catch it, we kill it,_ Aurora noted.

 _-Yes. But the primary objective is proving_ difficult.

Lian’s furious retort was punctuated by a triumphant roar as it snaked behind them and began to dig thin, nimble claws into the back of Sentinel’s neck.

“It’s targeting the Conn-Pod!” Aurora informed LOCCENT as best as she could through the sparks flaring out from the shaking Pod. Mission control must have responded, but neither pilot heard it, preoccupied as they were with trying to shake the kaiju that had now latched itself firmly onto Sentinel’s back. It was Jorogumo, now, Aurora was certain of it, and its grip did not loosen no matter how they twisted and pawed for the slippery bastard clinging to them. It remained locked onto them with its jaws now beginning to investigate the neck area that tied the Conn-Pod to the machine it controlled.

It struck a nerve, teeth sinking into delicate machinery. Pain lashed down both their spines.

“Hold it! Hold it back!” Lian commanded. Aloud, Aurora realized, but there was no time to question it.

_“Control, Sentinel’s in trouble. We’re going to go help ‘em out.”_

_“Stay where you are, Red!”_ That was the Marshal’s voice, clear and desperate _“We_ cannot _afford to lose you!”_

_“We can’t afford to lose them, either!” _  
__

\--

They were Mark I pilots, the oldest there were, the last left in the program that was all but dead. They’d held their own for years, had no less than seven kills slotted for the years they’d stood their ground and defended the coastline.

They could handle anything.

Until they couldn’t.

Kaiju weren’t supposed to be clever, David thought fuzzily as the monster used its body to trip them over and suck them beneath the water. Kaiju were beasts. Alien beasts. Built to exterminate populations and wipe out cities. 

They shouldn’t be _smart._

 _Especially_ not smart enough to get the drop on a _jaeger._

 _-Up. Get up,_ David told his wife frantically. They struggled to re-coordinate themselves, but being unexpectedly plunged underwater had only thrust them into further mental disorientation. The confusion only increased when a great heavy weight dropped on top of them, driving them further into the ocean. A split second later the confusion evaporated into dread. 

The kaiju was _on top of them._

They hadn’t gotten a proper look at it, but from the grating sounds and the distinct ripples of pain that generated bursts of sparks and breaking wiring, David and Mary could assume that it had _claws._ Great big heavy _claws._ Said claws took that moment to thud against the back of the Conn-Pod, then began to worm their way into the intricate circuitry holding it in place.

“It’s trying to drown us!” Mary gasped. “Poking holes - ”

A low hiss, then a spurt of icy water, and the two Rangers were soon choking.

“It’s pierced the hull!” David’s fingers fumbled at the comm. “Repeat, Aureola is down! Require backup - ” Anything else he had to say was lost in a storm of coughing as their Pod sprang another leak.

They couldn’t go down like this. Not _drowning._ Not when they hadn’t even gotten the chance to take their enemy down with them.

 _-We are_ not _dying like this, David._ His wife’s indignant outrage might have been amusing if they weren’t both so terrified. They just needed to get this heavyweight - off - 

They both had the same idea. Or one of them had the idea and the other immediately picked up on it, but their minds were too closely linked for either pilot to determine its origin.

“Ready,” choked David through the misty spray steadily filling the cockpit.

“Incinerator turbines!” Mary ordered the jaeger.

 _“Incinerator turbines online,”_ the delicate, computerized voice parroted. The metal groaned beneath the water as the turbines slowly warmed up. The kaiju pinning them down twitched, perhaps in discomfort - 

With an immensely satisfying _whoosh,_ the turbines jettisoned a rush of superheated water that promptly slammedinto the monster and it roared, backed off.

With a triumphant groan of metal and curtaining saltwater, Aureola burst out from the waves.

\--

Aurora and Lian ignored the argument going on over the comms - Omega still insisting that the other jaegers needed their help and LOCCENT commanding them, repeatedly, to _stand down, Rangers_ \- and instead concentrated on shaking the kaiju clinging to their jaeger like a grotesquely oversized limpet. They pitched Sentinel violently forward, deliberately unbalancing it, then jerked upright again.

It worked. Jorogumo’s grasp was broken and it went sailing into the waves.

Sentinel tore after it, holding off a recovering lunge with a solid parry and a pulse gauntlet to its angular, jutting face. Aurora glimpsed impossibly wide jaws laced with tiny teeth and a layout of beady black eyes similar to those of a spider.

_Jorogumo. The spider demon._

“Hold it!” Lian ordered. Sentinel lunged for the kaiju’s thorax but it skittered around the attack effortlessly. The blows they’d done it had hardly hampered it, hadn’t even slowed it down. Again, it made a pass at their jaeger’s back.

The same attack would _not_ work on the crew of Sentinel Fury twice. This time they followed it, aping its movements. It hissed ominously as they turned with it. Abruptly, it gave up on niceties and charged Sentinel directly. 

All right, well. They hadn’t anticipated that.

Lian got their right arm up in time to keep Jorogumo from piercing the Conn-Pod, but its jaws snapped over the arm instead. Lian grunted in pain as the fangs curled deeper, past the plating and into the sensitive wiring within. Aurora could feel her fellow pilot’s mind awash with agony from the attack, still furiously grinding out thought and strategy as though it were nothing. She directed a command to the left arm - _“Chain sword!”_ It whipped out and ready, and she plunged it into the monster’s stomach.

The kaiju screamed and released its grip on the arm only to swerve down and begin attacking the jaeger’s midriff, apparently undeterred.

\--

_“Aureola? You still with us?”_ Leroy demanded.

“Hull’s breached, but we’re still breathing,” David told the comm. “But we go down again, we’re not coming back up.”

_“Stay upright, then, Aureola. And help Sentinel, they’re going - ”_

The comms fizzled briefly, then went dead.

“What the - ” David smashed a fist into the panel. Then another. 

“No use. It’s dead.” Mary nodded at the punctures in their Pod. “Water got to it.”

 _-Speaking of which, where’d it go?_ He automatically switched to the drift thoughtspeak. There was no point in speaking aloud for the benefit of mission control now.

_-Not sure. But you heard Leroy. Sentinel needs us._

They started for the not-so-distant disturbance and got the barest image of the other jaeger wrestling a mass of thin, thrashing limbs into the water before their vision went cloudy. _Again._

 _-All right,_ David confessed. _That was_ really _stupid of us._

The shrieking warcry of the pissed off and apparently very much _alive_ kaiju rang shrilly behind them. They’d turned their back on it and left themselves defenseless. They got Aureola to half-turn before the monster - codename “Banshee,” Mills had said - drove a long, whiplike tail into the jaeger’s upper torso.

The machine’s reaction was instantaneous. The jaeger’s legs buckled, pain lanced through both pilots’ nervous systems, and they both might have cried out but David wasn’t entirely sure. The one thing he _was_ sure of, however, was that Banshee’s tail was digging itself deeper into the internal workings of Aureola Brave itself and forcing the whole thing to stumble backwards from the collision. It was pressing them toward the coastline, trying to get past the machine that barred its way by simply forcing it toward the populated city.

_-Sorry, that’s not happening._

David gritted his teeth against the ache that built from the groaning machinery and lunged out with the jaeger’s right arm, aiming at the kaiju’s whiplike tail. A mammoth fist closed around the appendage and yanked on it. _Hard._

Unbalanced, Banshee skidded in the water, momentum carrying it straight toward them. Mary activated Aureola’s elbow rocket and brought its left fist around in a truly inspiring left hook and sent the kaiju ragdolling away in a truncated arc. The force of the attack tore the tail from the jaeger it had affixed itself to.

But David still didn’t let go. They had the beast shackled to them by its tail. Both Rangers could see the sleek, streamlined coils bunching as the monster whipped around to face them, its awful serpentine head crested with bioluminescent, jellied growths. It screamed at them, once, and then made a rush for the Conn-Pod with razorlike teeth.

Mary brought up their free arm, the left arm, and hammered Banshee in its skull before it could reach the Pod. David and Mary both knew what would happen once it accomplished that feat. It could tear them apart, truly, and then there’d be no getting out. The Mark I jaegers were not built for escapes and loopholes. They were built for the explicit purpose of destroying the kaiju or leaving the pilots to die trying.

David and Mary said goodbyes before every battle, just in case the unexpected happened, but they weren’t ready to bow out just yet.

Banshee recovered from the blow impressively quickly and retaliated, head dabbing out to strike at the offending left arm, not unlike a cobra. It fastened its jaws around the arm and dug in hungrily, teeth breaking past the exterior plating and reducing it to scrap.

Both arms were busy. They should have _known_ it was coming.

But they didn’t.

Abruptly, Banshee dropped itself and became dead weight, lugging Aureola down with it. David and Mary realized what was happening too late and released their grip on its tail, tried to brush its hold from them, but to no avail. 

They were going to submerge again, and the Pod would fill with water. 

They would drown.

\--

Panic - hot, blazing panic - began to settle in Aurora’s stomach. Lian reached through their neural connection, and despite her own pain, eased that of her partner’s: they’d fight and win or die as one, just like they always promised one another before engaging a hostile, and no kaiju could rip that from them.

The panic hardened into resolve. Aurora yanked the sword from the belly of the beast and began to stab it again, trying to calculate its weaker areas through the shaking and pitching of the Conn-Pod. Jorogumo began to make its way toward the head of the machine, rattling the pilots about in the cockpit, but Aurora continued her onslaught, attempting to hack, stab, thrust at whatever piece of the kaiju the sword could reach. Lian’s right arm was injured but not wholly useless, as the monster was about to find out, for soon she brought the right arm’s pulse gauntlet up to hammer it in the head, dislodging it. As it sailed back toward the water, Aurora swiped with the chain sword. 

Jorogumo bellowed in pain. Her well-aimed swordstroke had severed two of its thin, spiderlike legs. They both dropped after the kaiju into the water, twitching and waving ineffectually as they hit sea and disappeared beneath the foam-crested waves.

_-Did we get it?_

_-No._

They circled the area warily.

“Any signatures, Leroy?” Aurora asked as the seconds trickled by in terse silence.

There was no reply from mission control. A glance in Aureola’s direction proved why - they were otherwise occupied. Aureola was floundering to hold its own against the much larger and heavier kaiju, Banshee, which was slowly but surely pushing it beneath the water.

 _-Help them?_ Aurora wondered.

_-Not until we’ve handled this._

_-It could be a trick. Luring us away to ambush them._

_-They’re vets. They can take care of themselves. They have Omega to fall back on._

There was no time for further conversation. Jorogumo was done hiding, it seemed, because a low rumbling roar echoed somewhere to their left a split second before the entire machine shook with a huge, heavy impact. The pilots felt the cockpit lock restraints groaning as they were nearly jolted out of place. The monster let out a low burbling cry and began to rake its devilishly pointed legs over Sentinel’s shoulder.

\--

Aureola was sinking. Mary and David lost sight of anything else as they fought to keep themselves above the surface, but the kaiju’s teeth were fixed firmly in their arm and the thing was gradually dragging them beneath the waves.

A long, low horn blared through the air just before the cockpit hit water. Both Aureola and Banshee froze. Then David allowed himself a tight, pleased grin.

Omega Red.

Banshee was fast, but Omega’s agility was unparalleled. It pounced on the kaiju with blow after blow, pushing it back and back and back. Aureola could right itself while Omega bashed at its attacker and drove it into the sea again. Somehow the jaeger managed to look smug when, with a final decisive uppercut, it launched the kaiju backwards into the ocean.

The kaiju chittered as it rose to full height (which was, as Category IVs went, literally _monstrous)._ Aureola and Omega both braced themselves for the fight, but it never came. Instead Banshee tilted its head back and let out a high, keening cry that sent the air humming with tiny vibrations. As the scream pierced the air, something impacted the cockpit and threw the pilots inside back against the walls of their Conn-Pod. They struggled to stand again and defend themselves,but there was something - wrong. Something _off._

David scrambled to mentally reach out to his wife, but the background noise of the drift was beginning to fade. He reached for the jaeger, mentally commanding it to move, to fight, to do _anything,_ but it wasn’t responding. _Nothing_ was responding.

Somehow, impossibly, they’d been disconnected. Mary’s mind was fading from his, rapidly.

Everything spiraled. He couldn’t hold onto it. He was helpless. _They_ were helpless. Lost, alone, and he couldn’t - he couldn’t _think_ when there was just all this _disconnect_ and -

“What’s - ” David panted.

“Everything’s shorted out,” said Mary. Her eyes widened as she surveyed the silent, cold, dead interior of the Conn-Pod, bereft of that consoling hum of lights and electronic life. “Anything that wasn’t already.”

“Wh - _how?”_ He had to reorder his mind, quickly, shaking his head again and again in an attempt to clear it, but it’s not like they could authorize a full reboot of their own minds and start again. He reached for the drift. He reached for _anything._

But nobody came.

The drift was just - _gone._

“I don’t know!” Mary was angrily pounding a clenched fist against the comms panel in a fruitless attempt to get it working again. “Some kind of - of sound weapon, maybe, but I don’t - ”

“We’re not the only ones,” said David grimly. He’d just taken a glance outside and his stomach had dropped.

“What?”

Mary peered out along with him. For a moment the stormy sheets of rain made it impossible to see anything, until a ragged shriek of lightning illuminated the silhouette of Omega Red imprinted against the waves. It stood, poised to initiate an attack that would never come, deathly still.

This was bad. This was really - _really_ bad.

“We’re both dead in the water,” he concluded bleakly. He couldn’t even see Sentinel Fury, let alone tell if they were in any better shape. “We’re down.”

\--

Jorogumo continued its assault on Sentinel’s shoulder with vicious, unshakable determination.

_-It’s trying to tear off the arm!_

The realization shook Aurora split second before it happened. She howled as their attacker dug all the combined strength of its front legs into the delicate socket area of the jaeger and _pulled._

The arm, chain sword and all, ripped out from its circuitry and plummeted into the ocean. The ripples of pain her partner had shaken off prior to this new attack was nothing compared to the raging _agony_ that shredded its way up Aurora’s arm and into her spine now. The drivesuit reacted to the disconnection, sparks hissing all up and down her left arm, the circuitry burning a white-hot imprint of itself into her skin. She was defenseless. There was nothing left for her to do but try and think through the blinding arm-mind-hurt- _pain._

 _-It’s weakening us. Taking us apart piece by piece,_ Aurora thought blurrily. She could hear her co-pilot screaming for her to _stay awake!_ but she could only sag between the Conn-Pod locking mechanisms, shaking her head repeatedly and fruitlessly to clear it. 

Quick, quick, the kaiju scuttled to Sentinel’s front and began to mercilessly tear at it with broad, flattened jaws. 

Starting with the head.

It did its work quickly and cleanly with no further screeches or wails. It knew what it was doing. It knew what it was doing and it was moving too _fast._

Aurora tried to process it, think, _think,_ how could they fight this back? They’d lost so much, the thing was too fast, there was nothing she could think of to _do._ Their right arm was injured, the left one completely shot. Hell if they even knew if their comms system was working anymore; radioing for help would be pointless.

Teeth dragged through hull. Stiff, thin claws scrabbled at the outside. Droplets of toxic blue blood from its injured legs flicked through, hissing as they corroded the metal instantaneously upon impact. 

_-No, no, no,_ Lian was murmuring her partner repeatedly. _No, no, no, no._

 _-No,_ Aurora agreed hazily. Then, _I’m sorry._

The fangs breached the Conn-Podd exterior, tearing out patches of protective glass and metal shielding and exposing the pilots within. They could taste salty spray and stinging ice-wind, shut their eyes to the elements.

_-I’m sorry._

_-I’m sorry too._

Aurora thought grimly, weakly, with a mirthless gallows humor bordering on hysteria, that perhaps they should apologize to the kaiju too. It had no idea what was in store for it.

Because it was about to have a _really_ bad time.

Because, with a wild, enraged yell, Lian drove Sentinel Fury’s remaining arm in through Jorogumo’s head, pulse gauntlet punching a massive fist-shaped hole into its fleshy skull. It wailed a final cry -

\- and crushed the Conn-Pod in its powerful legs with its last breath.

With no pilots left to drive it, the great jaeger sank beneath the waves, taking the kaiju’s still-twitching corpse with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Count the Undertale references that I slipped in during editing. Go on. Count them.
> 
> I'm garbage.


	19. Chapter 19

One minute Ruby and Graham had been doing what they were best at - owning a kaiju six ways to Sunday, naturally - and the next their jaeger was practically paralyzed. Which didn’t make _any_ sense, you know, but there was really no other way to explain how the controls had all fizzled and shorted out, including the comms, and now the whole thing refused to react.

Which was really just. Great. _No, really,_ it was _fantastic._

What was more, they weren’t drifting anymore. It was like the entire machine had just...shut down.

“What’d it do?” Ruby asked frantically. She started slamming her palm into buttons wherever she could - comms, weapons activation, anything - but every control pad had gone dark, unresponsive. “Why can’t we - ?”

“Some sort of sonic...thing, my guess,” Graham hypothesized wildly. “Doesn’t matter. We’re helpless no matter what we do.”

 _“Don’t,”_ Ruby hissed. _“Not_ helpless. Not yet.”

“Ruby.” Her co-pilot’s voice was resigned. “Ruby, what can we do? We can’t move. We’re not even drifting anymore.”

Ruby wasn’t listening. She was fumbling with the manual controls for the Conn-Pod locking systems. She grinned when she successfully unfused her drivesuit from the locks. Graham stared at her, mystified, but soon began to follow the suit.

“We are now free to move around the cabin.” She turned to her co-pilot, still smirking despite the gravity of the situation. _“Not_ helpless.”

\--

“We’re helpless,” Leroy groaned.

“What’s happened?” Mills demanded, leaning over to frown at his array of monitors and consoles. “Why can’t we see them anymore?”

“I don’t know. I’m blind.” The LOCCENT officer hit switch after switch with escalating frustration. “All I’m getting is one kaiju signature and it’s not moving, it’s just...circling.” He looked up at the Marshal fearfully. “Whatever it is, it’s not a problem at our end. Something took them all out. Electronically, anyway.”

“Oh, that’s just _great,”_ growled Mills.

Izzy watched the proceedings with crossed arms, head tilted curiously to one side. She was as much in the dark as the rest of them and she couldn’t begin to parse the technicalities of it all, but she could tell that whatever was happening wasn’t good. That much was fairly obvious. Her fellow pilot stood beside her and had been watching the proceedings with a precisely measured, icy disinterest up until the moment when all three blinking lights on the monitors, the ones that signified jaegers, went out. Now he made no attempt to conceal his anxiety - his hands were balled into fists and even his normally half-hunched shoulders had gone rigid. Their ghost-drifting connection might have faded a few hours after their first trial run, but she could still sense his frazzled nerves and the low, rumbling undercurrent of dread that came from the flashes of panic over how his last kaiju encounter had ended.

“We’re getting no jaeger signals. Marshal,” Leroy looked up at Mills, the worry stark in his voice. “You’re going to have to consider that maybe all three of them - ”

“No.” She ignored the dismal note in his voice. “Until we get confirmation, I refuse to believe that.”

Izzy privately agreed. They had three jaegers out there. No _way_ would any Category IV be able to take them down so fast.

“That doesn’t change the fact that we still have a live kaiju signature,” Leroy retorted. “If those jaegers aren’t down now they will be once it’s done with them! And then it’ll come to us. Is that what you want?”

Mills raised one hand to rub at a temple, eyes shut and brow furrowed. “Someone get the research team up here. We need confirmation on whatever’s happening.”

“Okay, great. You gonna do something about the thirty-thousand-ton monster that’s still alive and kicking out there?” Leroy apparently wouldn’t be cutting the Marshal any slack.

“Give me a minute!” she barked back at him.

“We do have one other choice,” Izzy said gingerly. 

Every head in the mission control snapped toward her, including Gold’s. She swallowed. She hadn’t meant to say that quite so loudly.

Mills immediately caught on. Izzy didn’t need to say anything else. She didn’t even need to make eye contact. 

_“No.”_

“You said it yourself, Marshal: we’re short on options. And I thought you said we’d have to pull our weight come the next event.” Izzy jabbed an emphatic finger at the dead screens, blank and lifeless. “And it’s here. It’s now.”

“You’ve drifted once. _Once._ And you very nearly incapacitated yourselves doing it.” Mills shook her head. “This isn’t a simulator or a test, Miss French. These are real people who are really dying.”

“You think I haven’t caught onto that?” Izzy couldn’t keep down the bolt of anger that hardened in her chest at the Marshal’s disparaging tone. She might not have as much field experience as the other pilots, but that didn’t make her totally naive.

“I think you have an over-optimistic idea of what you’re capable of.”

Gold stood between Marshal and Ranger, head swiveling back and forth between them. Izzy could pick up on his flashes of fear and intense reluctance to intrude upon the argument, coupled with the nagging worry about the kaiju that could very easily be finishing off the last shreds of the defense drop and heading straight for the Shatterdome as its next target. 

He said nothing.

“And I think that if you don’t deploy _someone_ to stop that thing, it won’t matter how capable or incapable we are,” Izzy fired back. “We’ll _all_ go down if you don’t do something.”

“You think I need to hear that?” A note of terror splintered in the Marshal’s voice as she shouted it. Gold flinched sharply in the corner of Izzy’s eye. That seemed to be his last straw. 

His anxiety abruptly detonated. His face flooded with a vicious, concentrated fury, he intervened at last.

“We got two choices, Marshal,” the pilot snarled, stabbing in her general direction with a vicious finger. “You send us out there to maybe stop that thing or we all die here because you couldn’t make the damned logical order!”

The hint of vulnerability Izzy had picked up from the Marshal hardened into out-and-out anger.

“We need you for that final drop, Gold. Especially if the others are all down.” The words were cold but laid out clearly and precisely, though it was clear from their taut edge that Gold’s outburst had infuriated her far more than she let on.

“And if the others are all down, any final push you hope to make won’t _matter._ Because we’ll all be _dead.”_

\--

“Ruby, there’s no point,” Graham protested as his fellow pilot fumbled with the manual release of the Conn-Pod exterior hatch. “What’re you hoping to achieve with this? If anything, we’re safer _inside_ Omega.”

“We’ve gone dark, Graham,” Ruby replied steadily. “Mission control doesn’t know if we’re alive or dead. Hell, we don’t even know if the _others_ are alive or dead.”

“All right, okay. So what do we do about it?”

“Ha!” 

Ruby had stopped paying attention. A loud, satisfying _ka-chunk_ echoed tinnily in the jaeger’s interior as the Conn-Pod hatch unlocked. Cold air rushed in through the opening and the faint mist of sea spray and rainwater hushed into the Pod, but Ruby had already turned her attention elsewhere, to one of the emergency first-aid containers mounted along the Pod’s edges. They’d almost been crammed in as an afterthought, but Ruby seemed bent on rescuing them.

Graham raised an eyebrow. “What’re you doing?”

Ruby rummaged around in one of them for a minute before retrieving a flare gun. She flashed Graham a cocky grin, pushed open the hatch, and disappeared outside into the rain and ice-cold wind.

“You’re out of your mind,” her co-pilot muttered. 

He followed her out.

\--

Mills started pacing. Izzy could tell that Gold’s words had gotten to her; she had to admit the truth in them, but even then she didn’t seem to want to make a decision over what to _do_ about it. The mission control was silent, the tense seconds trickling away.

“Sorry! Sorry we’re late,” Whale broke in with a cheerfulness that was jarringly discordant given the general tone of the rest of mission control, completely unaware of the tension that his entrance had just dispelled. Hopper slipped quietly in behind him, wisely choosing to keep his mouth shut. “Heard the news, though. What a shocker!” 

He grinned lamely. Everyone just looked at him.

“That was, uh, a joke,” Whale clarified weakly. “Because, uh, the electricity - ”

“They got it. Best not dwell on it,” Hopper told him gently. Then he turned to the Marshal. “What can we do?”

“We’re not picking up any signatures except one of the kaiju,” Leroy informed the scientists with his usual brusqueness. “The other jaegers went offline or, or something. All at once, so they can’t have just been _taken out,_ just like _that…”_

He trailed off. No one needed to voice the worry lingering behind the words; it was thick in the air.

“Okay, so what are the other possibilities?” Whale rode right over the apprehension in his usual deft obliviousness. “We thinking EMP, waterlogged systems…?”

“EMP would have traveled farther. We’re looking at something else.” Hopper leaned over the monitor, frowning. “And mission control is still working, which is a good thing.”

“Marshal,” Gold interrupted. “This doesn’t change that you still only have one viable option here.”

“We can’t know that.” She didn’t even look away from the scientists as they stooped over the monitors with twin expressions of concern.

\--

“You realize this is the stupidest idea you’ve had since...well, _ever.”_

“Shh.”

“I can’t see Aureola from here. Ruby, what are you even _doing?”_

Graham, perched on the topmost part of the jaeger beside his fellow pilot, scanned the surrounding waves nervously. Even if their jaeger was down, at least they had a good deal of metal and circuitry to serve as a buffer between them and any incoming attacks so maybe they’d get a few more seconds of heart-pounding _horror_ before getting completely dismembered. But here, at the _very_ top point, they were horribly exposed.

Ruby didn’t look to care much. She tilted the flare gun straight into the air with every intention of firing, but Graham stopped her.

 _“What are you doing?”_ he repeated, incredulous. “Are you _trying_ to get us killed?”

“Flare gun will send a signal to mission control,” Ruby answered coolly. “Distress beacon to let them know we’re still here, we’re alive, and we need help.”

“We won’t for long once you fire that! If that kaiju doesn’t know where we are now, it _definitely_ will after this!”

“We gonna take that risk or are we gonna die hiding?” said his co-pilot, hard and challenging. “‘Cause I know which way I’d rather go out.”

Graham pulled in a tight breath. If he had his way, he would really prefer not to die at all, thanks. But Rangers didn’t go down running or hiding. They went down fighting, making noise, putting up a struggle. Even if they’d been denied the chance to take down Banshee with them, they could at least give someone a chance to do what they couldn’t. He nodded once and stood back.

Ruby tipped the flare gun back and fired once.

\--

“Hold up, Marshal! We’re picking up on something here.”

“What is it?” she demanded, immediately joining the scientists’ at the LOCCENT monitors.

“Heat signal. I think it’s - yeah, that’s a distress beacon. Flare signal, if I’m not mistaken.” Whale indicated a tiny blue dot which blinked rapidly over a random point in the ocean, then went out.

“Where’d it go?” Mills actually seemed a little frantic with worry as she tapped the screen where the dot had been. “What happened?”

“Flares only last so long, Marshal.” Leroy was already tapping furiously on one of the keyboards. “But we got a clear signal of where they are now, which means we can pinpoint their position manually. You might want to get another team to suit up and jockey out, Marshal. Until we can get the other jaegers back online, they’re just cannon fodder.”

Izzy held her breath. She knew what would come next, then. There were no other options.

“Kaiju can pick up on heat signatures too, Marshal,” said Leroy, quieter.

“Right.” The Marshal turned to the two remaining pilots on deck tiredly. “You two will have to get ready to engage.”

“So the Corps operates under the sink or swim policy now, does it?” Gold snapped. Izzy shut her eyes and breathed through her nose. A minute ago he’d been saying just the opposite. Was he arguing _solely_ for the sake of being disagreeable?

“You said we had no other choice. You were right.” Mills’ tone did not allow for further argument. _“Go.”_

Gold looked about ready to speak out further, but Izzy quickly stepped in and forced a smile.

“We’ll get on it, Marshal, thank you.” She shot her fellow pilot a meaningful glance as she exited mission control, but didn’t need to check to see if he was following as she headed toward the docking bay. She could hear his grumbling in the back of her head.

\--

Graham was now thoroughly convinced that Ruby Lucas did not actually think things through. _Ever._ The flare had gone up and it _might_ have worked - not that there was any way of verifying, really - but the earsplitting roar that immediately followed the fizzling burst of light from the flare gun had confirmed their worst fears. They might have gotten a distress signal through, but they were about to pay dearly for the effort.

He barely managed to drag Ruby back into the relative safety of the Pod before Banshee tore out from the waters, screaming as only a Category IV could. It circled the suspiciously motionless jaeger cautiously, allegedly unaware of the two pilots that were currently huddled inside.

“You’re an idiot,” growled Graham.

“Nice last words,” Ruby flashed back, grinning cheerfully. “Love you too, buddy.”

The low rumbling cries of the kaiju increased in magnitude as it drew closer. Graham’s hand unconsciously crept into Ruby’s and she grasped it tightly. As soon as the kaiju figured out that Omega was defenseless, they’d be torn apart in seconds. They’d launched a warning skyward in the desperate hope that mission control would be able to intercept and interpret it correctly, but it would come at the cost of their lives.

Graham didn’t want to die. He was fairly certain Ruby didn’t either, but she seemed far more willing to embrace that fate if it came at a reasonable price. And they’d done the best they could, considering the circumstances.

The entire Conn-Pod shook horribly as the kaiju pushed at it experimentally. Both Rangers, no longer locked in place, were thrown against the wall. Graham groped at the walls for support but the metal was slick and devoid of purchases. He briefly considered the idiocy of wanting to tell his fellow pilot to _hold on_ because they were both fully aware of the fact that there was nothing to hold on _to_ unless they strapped back in.

Banshee set the Pod rocking again with another nudge, this one fiercer. The entire thing threatened to tip into the waves, but only flung the Rangers against the _back_ wall this time. 

And something _wild_ took hold of Graham then. Maybe it was the epinephrine, the vertiginous sense of impending doom, the inability to accept that yes, _really,_ they were probably _about to die,_ but the terror abruptly dissolved upon contact with an adrenalized rush of fierce defiance.

 _“Come on!”_ he bellowed, not caring if the kaiju could even hear him. _“Come on! That all you got?”_

He could sense Ruby’s shock and dismay, but he also knew she couldn’t see the point in discouraging him from antagonizing the raging beast that was about to kill them anyway.

And then they heard the horn.

The kaiju screamed again, but this time it wasn’t at them.

“Holy shit,” breathed Ruby.

Then she grinned.

“Oh, you sons of bitches,” said Graham, staring in utter disbelief.

“This is gonna _suck.”_

And Ruby sounded positively _delighted_ about it.

\--

Marshal Mills had been right, Izzy thought frantically. The simulator was really _nothing_ like the real thing. 

They’d suited up easily enough - lock, load, enter the drift, and thunder out to be the hero. Only this time, the knowledge that they’d actually be fighting with the very real possibility of dying colored their thoughts with a sense of urgency and existential dread. Izzy fleetingly wondered if it would help them fight better or just kill them quicker.

It wasn’t like their first drift at _all._

Oddly enough, Gold’s memories were a calming presence in their mind this time. There was still that ever-present racetrack of fear there, and the vivid technicolor replay of Neal being ripped from the cockpit while Gold could only watch and feel his pain, but it was more subdued now. Those memories were too thickly padded with the low rumble-current of recollections of all the other monsters Gold and his son had taken down with ruthless efficiency. The trauma of Neal’s death couldn’t have the same impact while it was no longer at the forefront. Now it was buried beneath the humming backdrop of his head, shot through with a dizzying spectrum of yellows, blurry grays and blacks. Yet that particular memory lingered as a cautionary tale, a harsh, unsubtle reminder of what the consequences would be if they failed. 

They approached the nearest kaiju slowly, codename Banshee, not even ten miles out; it had already pushed the defense team back into the miracle mile, dangerously close to the L.A. coastline. The kaiju was squaring itself up to the sleek, powerful figure of Omega Red, but the jaeger wasn’t moving to defend itself. It wasn’t moving at all. Neither was the more distant, hulking form of Aureola Brave, for that matter. Both machines were unnervingly still. The kaiju bumped its head tentatively against Red’s exterior, as if to sense if it were playing a trick, but still, nothing.

“What’s wrong with them?” Izzy asked, confused. She remembered what they’d taught her back in her Academy days - vocal communication even while in the thought-drift was a vital part of the interaction between the two pilots. She didn’t think she could sort through the twin veins of thought pulsing in her head to work out clear and distinct words, anyhow. “Why aren’t they fighting back?”

“I suspect they can’t,” Gold answered evenly, though he could do little to conceal his worry. It was already gathering at the fringes of his thought, but he shunted it aside deftly. “They said it was a possible electrical disturbance. It seems they were right.”

Izzy was grateful for Gold’s ability to effortlessly manipulate the thoughtscape they were both caught in, uncomfortably aware that it was largely the solidity of his consciousness that was keeping her tethered to reality this time around. He tugged together different memories, ideas, thoughts, compacted them into a tight skein, and began to formulate a plan. 

The kaiju couldn’t wait that long. Banshee brushed up against Omega again, more aggressively this time. The jaeger grew perilously close to overbalancing into the water. They needed to distract it, but they weren’t close enough to engage. 

“Oh, _yes we are.”_ Gold sounded - pleased? Mischievous? It was such an unfamiliar emotion on him that Izzy was genuinely taken aback when he sounded the warning klaxon. The loud, triumphant foghorn-like blaring succeeded in its intended purpose: the kaiju turned to face the new threat, the strangely still Omega Red apparently forgotten.

“Chest cannons,” Izzy’s fellow pilot ordered, and the jaeger responded immediately. Its chest panels slid back to reveal four cannon barrels that promptly released a salvo of lead and fire on the approaching beast. It shrank back an instant before the shells hit but was blown back several huge paces by the collision. Its leathery hide would be too thick for the blasts to pierce through and seriously injure it, but the attack had taken it by surprise and that was all they needed.

Fangblades fully extended, Spindle launched itself at the recovering enemy. Banshee swung two huge, heavy claws at them, aiming for the cockpit, but there was weariness in the movement. It had already tangled with one jaeger and its fatigue was starting to show. That didn’t stop it from meeting Spindle halfway, slamming viciously into it and driving it back. Mammoth jaws snapped at the jaeger’s head. Spindle managed to raise its arms in time to catch the kaiju’s claws before they could reach the Conn-Pod, bringing Banshee’s charge to a standstill. 

For several tense moments, the pilots strained to maintain their hold of the beast’s curved claws, caught in a bizarre tableau that inexplicably reminded Izzy of one of those old pro-wrestling matches her dad used to watch, jostling the antenna to get the best possible signal. Monster and machine pitted metal against bunched alien muscle. The ironbound supports in Spindle’s arms began to groan with the effort.

Static-blitzed memory hitched claws into Izzy’s head and she tried to shake them out, to no avail.

Spindle’s foothold slipped.

Banshee lunged and drove the jaeger to its knees. Spindle countered with a left uppercut. Izzy’s fangblade caught the thing beneath its broad chin, and sickly, electric blue blood tumbled down the kaiju’s front. It hissed menacingly, retreated a pace, and swiped again. Spindle dodged the jab and as they ducked, Izzy orchestrated a chopping arc with the jaeger’s left arm. She sliced at one of the monster’s arms, nearly severing it at the middle. More of the toxic blue sprayed out, thick and gelatinous and only just missing the body of the jaeger.

The kaiju howled. The timbre of its wail began to reach a danger pitch, but Gold silenced the noise by making full use of the momentum from their dodge and Izzy’s subsequent attack. He punched forward with the right fangblade, aimed true, and drove it directly into the beast’s throat.

“We got it!” she gasped.

Izzy’s burst of elation caused their combined focus to slip. Banshee’s shrieks grew choked and muffled, its serpentine body thrashed, and a long, scaly scourge of a coil smashed into Spindle’s midriff. The jaeger was flung backwards from the dying creature and rolled over and over in the water, struggling to right itself in case the kaiju wasn’t done yet. But while the monster writhed in the churned-up waves for a few more moments, it did little besides release a stream of bubbling, choking growls with decreasing volume before sinking backwards and disappearing into the pelagic undertow.

 _-Hang on._ Gold’s curtness cut across Izzy’s ecstasy of defeating her first real kaiju. The wariness behind the words gave her pause, and it took her a moment to realize he was projecting his own thoughtspeak at her. Mystified, Izzy did her best to respond in kind.

_-What?_

_-Best we make sure._

That made things much clearer. Izzy no longer needed to ask the _why_ or _what_ of her fellow pilot’s choice in communication. He wasn’t comfortable with LOCCENT hearing what should be private between the two pilots.

They approached the patches of bright neon blue blood that floated ominously on the gradually calming seawater, leftover from the fatal blows they’d struck. The dim silhouette of the prone animal on the ocean floor stretched out just beneath, illuminated by the not-terribly-distant flashes of lightning. It was no less breathtakingly huge now in death than it had been in its violently short life. 

Gold’s face twisted into a scowl of distaste. Wordlessly, thoughtlessly, he raised Spindle’s right fangblade and plunged it into the kaiju’s neck to finish what he started. He stabbed viciously, unrepentantly at the thing, a dissonant tranquility clouding his head as he poured out grief, rage, _years_ of pain into striking the dead beast. 

Again. 

And again.

And again. 

And again, and again, again again again again again _again -_

 _-You can stop now,_ Izzy told him quietly.

He halted. His mind took a few stuttering steps as it re-established its surroundings. Finally it caught up to the fangblade poised above the fallen monster, the thick spatters of electric blue that floated on the ocean’s surface, and the low echoes of fear radiating from his co-pilot. With a horrible, wrenching effort, Gold tore his mind away from the thing lying dead on the ocean floor.

 _-That should cover it,_ he told Izzy with an unnerving serenity. The weight of Neal’s memories stormed away beneath the deathly calm, but Izzy didn’t acknowledge them. There was no need.

 _“And we’re back online!”_ Leroy’s relieved voice rang through the comms, startling the two Rangers out of their solemn, companionable silence. _“Kaiju signatures both down. What’s happening out there, Spindle?”_

“No sign of Sentinel,” Gold answered immediately. His voice was deceptively dispassionate, revealing nothing of the grim, satisfied closure he’d just enacted on the fallen beast at their feet. “We have a lock on Brave and Red but it looks like they’re still offline. They aren’t moving or contacting us.”

_“We’ll send a recovery team. Try to fan out and get sights on Fury.”_

Gold silenced the comm, looking over to meet Izzy’s gaze.

“You did it,” was all she could get out. “And, well.” She made a vague chopping motion with one hand. “Quick.” 

Her word processor seemed to be out of commission, but their neural connection confirmed that Gold understood her meaning perfectly. A rueful, sardonic smile curved on one side of his mouth.

“Been waiting ten years for that.”

Nothing more needed to be said. Both pilots turned their attention to scanning the waters for any sign of Sentinel Fury, but all the while the euphoria of their victory sang silently between them.


	20. Chapter 20

Despite the victory, a heavy, overwhelming despondency clung thickly to the air in the Shatterdome. Which, okay, Emma understood pretty well. Out of all the jaeger crews, she’d known the Sentinel Fury duo the least, at least in terms of personability. Most of what she knew about them had been from old midnight TV spots and newspaper articles. The whispers of the Corps remnants said that the pilots of Sentinel Fury were devoted completely and utterly to only two things: the PPDC and each other.

Emma wished she’d talked to them, or gotten to know them, or _something._ She felt entirely useless when the semi-heroic crews returned. Whatever excitement might have been generated by the defeat of the double event had immediately been dampened when Gold and his new co-pilot delivered the somber news that Sentinel Fury had fallen. They’d located the jaeger on the ocean floor, a hardly recognizable tangle of twisted metal that had practically lashed itself to the kaiju. Emma had glimpsed the video feeds. The wreckage reminded her disturbingly of a last embrace, an obscene parody of affection. The jaeger’s arms had, in their last moments, wrapped themselves tightly around the kaiju’s torn, sea-bloated body and the monster’s six remaining legs lovingly crushed the Conn-Pod with a death grip in return.

(At this point a few of the others watching had bolted, clapping hands to mouths, and the thumps of their running footsteps were soon followed by the sound of liquid spattering floor. Emma’s stomach had merely clenched with revulsion, but she could certainly empathize.)

As it was now, Emma didn’t know what to do with herself. They might have just beaten back an imminent threat, but it had come at a grave price. The entire Shatterdome didn’t seem to dare to want to celebrate, grim and tightly wound as they were with the news that come the next surge of Breach activity, it would likely be a _triple_ event. A _triple event,_ and they were already one jaeger short from what they’d started with.

She really needed to find herself a co-pilot.

Somehow the thought didn’t inspire any great comfort or determination in her. On the contrary, her nervousness only ratcheted up another few notches. Emma hadn’t gotten the full scope of just how much of their success depended on her being able to find a co-pilot. The thought frankly terrified her, especially considering her streak of non-success in this regard. 

Her confrontation with Regina had been her (admittedly poorly thought-out) attempt to regain some semblance of control by getting out of the program entirely. 

(Again.)

Only the Marshal had nixed the idea pretty much instantly, and Emma was back to where she started. They all were, except that now they had an half-inexperienced jaeger crew taking the place of a highly capable one and even _less_ time until the next event.

Which was just, you know. Peachy.

And what was more, Emma couldn’t find any other possibilities for herself. She was forced to concede that the Marshal and other pilots and everyone else was _right_ in saying that Emma was their best chance, however much it grated on her to do so. She was the game-changer variable, and she was _failing._ She didn’t like the pressure and impending doom that expectation had placed on her, but it wasn’t like she could just bow out either. She was trapped in a situation that wasn’t offering her any alternative solutions.

So, essentially, she was helpless.

Emma didn’t _do_ helpless. 

She said nothing. She hid herself in the throng of officers and maintenance crews as they half-heartedly celebrated their tainted victory, watching impassively as the remaining three jaeger teams wove their way past. David and Mary seemed suitably rattled; the Omega Red pilots were locked in deep conversation even as the crowd jostled itself around them; Izzy was beaming while Gold avoided everyone’s gaze, looking very much like he would rather skip all the celebration and move right on to the funeral. 

There was an impromptu speech and all, with the Marshal reminding everyone that the battle had been won but the war still raged, and that even this victory had come at a terrible cost, and that they couldn’t allow themselves time to grieve, not properly, but Emma wasn’t paying much attention at that point. In the corner of her eye, she could feel Gold watching her with an unsettling intensity, but she did her best to ignore that too. He _had_ his pilot. She couldn’t imagine what interest he might still have in her own predicament.

The officialities must have ended, because the crowd gradually began to disperse. Emma followed the suit, wondering if it would be possible to slip out of the Shatterdome undetected. She’d done it plenty back before she’d enrolled to be a Ranger, well-acquainted as she was with sneaking out of foster homes in the dead of the night.

“A moment, Miss Swan.”

Emma only _just_ restrained herself from groaning and rolling her eyes, turned, and faced the Marshal.

“If you’re hoping I found a co-pilot in record time, you’re going to be disappointed,” Emma sighed.

“I didn’t expect you to.” She might as well have been made of iron, all the emotion she showed. Her facial expressions around Emma usually ranged from _mildly disapproving_ to _pissed off_ with little additional variation. “But I was hoping you had some ideas in that regard.”

“I got nothing, unless you want me to start testing officers,” Emma quipped, though a good part of her couldn’t help but wonder if that suggestion could actually be valid. “Worked for Gold and according to you, he and I are cut from something of the same cloth, so, you know - ”

“Short of single-piloting, I’m willing to have you try anything at this point,” the Marshal muttered. It took Emma a minute to realize that she wasn’t completely joking either.

“The rate I’m going, going solo looks to be my best bet. At least that way I’d be out of everyone’s hair.”

“Wouldn’t say that.” Emma didn’t dare to guess that there might be a _smile_ hiding in the Marshal’s normally stern words, but that was, oddly, the vibe she was getting. “You strike me as someone too stubborn to let something like that stop you. It didn’t stop me.”

“You - what?” 

Mills looked like she regretted saying so, but there was no dodging the subject now.

“Piloting a jaeger solo. It’s possible. Not _pleasant_ by any means, but possible.”

“You mean to say - ?” Emma couldn’t quite bring herself to say it. But if she was right, it certainly explained a _lot_ of the Marshal’s behavior. The reserved, closed-off inability to express typical human emotions like _joy_ or _satisfaction,_ and the reluctance to be personable with any of her pilots.

“Figures I’d be talking to the _one_ person who didn’t know,” Mills grumbled. “Yes, all right. I was a pilot once and it was an emergency.”

“You piloted it _solo?”_

“I wasn’t the first to do so, but yes.” Her chin jerked oddly a the admission, her eyes slipping from Emma’s face and toward the floor. There was a glimmer of emotion that was definitely _not_ along the regular veins of frustration or anger. “For just under ten minutes. My co-pilot had been - compromised.”

Emma - was at a loss for words. No defense mechanisms of sarcasm or sly, underhanded remarks leapt up to defend her from the unexpected openness of this incredibly guarded, disagreeable woman that Emma had never particularly wanted to get to know on a deeply personal level. Emma didn’t much know _what_ she could say in response to that, except perhaps to do exactly what she did, which was a strange half-nod-shrug-thing that probably looked intensely awkward.

Fortunately, the Marshal didn’t seem to take much notice. On the contrary, she appeared to be going through her own personal withdrawal into nostalgia.

“I didn’t know,” Emma finally admitted after the silence had dragged on for _far_ too long. “I mean, I knew you were a pilot once, but, uh. I didn’t know exactly how.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” she said shortly, and _there_ was the snappish Marshal Mills that Emma had come to recognize and righteously detest. “I’ve never said. It was years ago.” She was doing a masterful job of pushing down the brief flutters of worn nostalgia that had momentarily surfaced in her expression, but Emma was well-acquainted with such tactics herself. She could tell that a great deal of that emotional baggage had managed to claw its way past the hardened exterior Regina had built up over the years.

“You were still connected when he, uh.” Emma made a vague waving motion with one hand. She was entirely unsure how it was supposed to signify what she meant it to, but Regina got the message well enough. 

“I was.” The corner of the Marshal’s mouth twitched. “There’s a reason Mr. Gold and I never much got along. We have a little more common than either of us would like.”

“I feel that,” muttered Emma. “How do you get used to it?”

“What?”

“The, um.” Emma tapped the side of her head, feeling exceedingly foolish. “The. Uh. Emptiness. In your head. After that. How do you get past it?”

Regina offered a quick, tight smile that was so stiffly sad that it really shouldn’t have qualified as a smile at all.

“You don’t,” she said quietly. “You just sort of learn to live there.”

Emma didn’t have a response to that one. She’d never figured the Marshal for someone with, well, _basic human emotions,_ but the shards of history she’d just shared explained far too much of her walled-off, selective behavior, the same way Gold’s past had his. It was now crushingly clear to Emma that the Marshal had never been the unfeeling, heartless person she’d initially assumed she was. This was someone who’d been quietly broken in her past and now had to more or less relive the same awful pain of loss every time she sent a new pair of Rangers out. The only reason she was being so open about this _now,_ Emma suspected, was because they all knew how close to the end they all were. They were teetering on a precipice and didn’t want to take the final leap. The last jaeger to fall was one of the handful they had remaining, and while Regina might have despaired at that, Emma also got the impression of - _relief_ there. 

Because it would soon be over, one way or another. 

She could only lose so much before there was nothing left to be ripped, torn, taken from her. 

For the first time, Emma could appreciate what a truly difficult job the Marshal had, to rally everyone together for one last foray into the alien scar that lived at the bottom of the ocean. And, yeah, Emma couldn’t even _begin_ to understand how horrible and weighing a job that must be - heaven knew that Emma would never have taken it, not for the highest paycheck in their crippled, war-torn world - she could certainly _sympathize_ with her. Which was, well. Weird.

“It was, ah, Cygnus Royal.” Regina gazed at the floor, fingers of one hand massaging the knuckle of another. She didn’t so much seem to be speaking directly to Emma as she was simply finding a way to release the pent-up emotions that had festered away due to a history that had gone too long unspoken, unshared. “It was supposed to be my second chance. New co-pilot, newly-developed Mark IV, everything.”

“What happened?” Emma already knew this part of the tale from the countless news stories that had covered it, but telling her story looked to be doing Regina some good. She hadn’t stopped fidgeting with her hands, but it turned out there was _also_ a good reason for that. Emma’s stomach dropped when she noticed the ring. It was too easy to guess to whom it had belonged.

“The previous Marshal, my mother, she - well. She died. She’d always hoped I’d succeed her.” Regina’s second smile was full of muted bitterness, nothing like the fragile, sad thing it had been before. “I guess she was right.”

“But that.” Emma realized with a slight shock that a lump had begun to itch the back of her throat and now why had _that_ happened? “That wasn’t what you wanted.”

The silence stretched, long and uncomfortable. Then Regina shook her head.

“No.” The word was barely a whisper. 

“So change it.” A strange, creeping wildness arrested the choking thickness threatening to stifle Emma’s words. “The world’s coming to an end. What does it _matter_ if things aren’t acceptable or, or protocol or whatever? And you’ve said it yourself: we’ve tried pairing me with every candidate you’ve got on hand, officers excluded.”

It took the Marshal a good ten seconds to fully grasp what Emma was implying.

“What,” she said flatly.

“We’ll never know unless we _try,_ won’t we?”

“I can’t think of two people _less_ compatible for one another.” The vulnerability Emma had glimpsed as the Marshal shared her history was rapidly beginning to fade, much to her dismay. “Every decision I’ve made, you’ve had something to say against.”

“And every decision _I’ve_ made, you’ve had some problem with!” Emma blazed back. 

“I hardly think a constant refusal to get along warrants a close bond of any kind,” Regina said, her tone landing somewhere between flat disbelief and utter perplexity.

“We don’t let each other off easy which, as I understand it, is a pretty valuable thing for two people to share.” Emma crossed her arms. Her brain had latched onto the thought and it wasn’t letting go. “Plus, hey! We’re low on options here. You want to get Cygnus running with me behind the wheel, you’re gonna have to start making some compromises. We _both_ are. I thought you wanted to get back in the cockpit, anyhow.”

“That was - years, Swan. _Years,_ and before all this!” Regina flung out a hand to gesture at the Shatterdome walls helplessly. “That part of me is over.”

“Funny how you said that you and Gold have a lot in common. He was the same, till you dragged him back into it,” retorted Emma. “Maybe it’s time you did the same for yourself.”

“You _can’t_ be serious.”

“Would you believe me if I told you Gold said that exact same thing?”

Regina threw Emma a look that was so thoroughly disgusted it would almost be comical. But her next words, however disbelieving, were far from harsh:

“You _really_ want to do this?” 

“I think it’s worth a shot.” She paused. “More than a shot. I think it’s our best chance.”

Emma held her breath. Regina fiddled with her ring, wavering in indecision, and for an awful moment the two could only stand and wait as she vacillated.

“I - ” Regina stopped, bit her lower lip, and cast one final, despairing glance at the ring she was now frantically turning over and over on her finger. Then she looked up again with an unexpectedly open, clear purpose. The expression looked out of place, at least to Emma, who had only just now been exposed to a broader range of emotional exhibition than the polarizing anger-exasperation-disapproval spectrum. “You believe that?”

“Well, we’ve had enough staring contests to warrant _some_ sort of connection.” The subject matter had long since gotten more serious than Emma was properly comfortable with, and she’d hoped to dispel the somber mood with a little levity. While it would have been generous to hope for a laugh, or even a smile, Regina’s shoulders did loosen and she - she hesitated, but she nodded, the motion barely perceptible.

“Then I expect to see you bright and early in the Kwoon tomorrow morning, Miss Swan, eight o’ clock sharp.” 

The order was spoken with none of the usual cold sternness. Emma chanced a half-smile and a partial salute before taking her leave. Come tomorrow, she and Regina might be drift compatible and they might not, but they’d reached - an _understanding._ It was an unfamiliar sort of acceptance that Emma couldn’t remember feeling, but it wasn’t unwelcome. On the contrary, it felt, well.

It felt _nice._

 _Nice._ That was the word, then. She and Regina navigating an _entire conversation_ without the utterance of a single barbed jibe constituted as… _nice._

More than that, even. It felt pretty good. 

...and when had she started thinking of her as “Regina,” anyway?


	21. Chapter 21

She found him lurking in the upper viewing deck areas, watching as the scattered maintenance crews checked Spindle Gauntlet over for repairs. It was easy to track him down, what with the ghost drift still in effect, so all she had to do was follow the slow, quiet run of his thoughts to Spindle’s doorstep. Gold sat against the wall, his still-aching right leg stretched out in front of him, radiating a rare glow of contentment.

Izzy was loathe to disturb him, particularly when he’d finally found some momentary form of peace, but a discussion of the unresolved nest of problems she’d brushed against in his head needed to happen. Her own right leg began to burn terribly as she climbed the stairs. It was a uniquely dissociative feeling, that the pain was distinct and present but she could still feel removed from it, the _not-hurt_ that still itched peculiarly at the back of her head. She fired a few inquisitive thoughts his way, but his mind was too distant to either receive or interpret them. Gold was probably fine - the savage euphoria following their first kill had been completely unlike his usual gruffly dismissive air - and she knew he was a man who valued his aloneness at the right times. Izzy just wanted to be sure, especially considering her leg was killing her by the time she reached him, meaning the pain was likely much worse for him. He’d just gotten absurdly good at distancing himself from it, which was probably all kinds of unhealthy and wrong.

She knew he could sense her as she lowered herself to sit beside him. Neither of them said anything, content to explore each others’ minds for a spell. Things were much gentler in this capacity than they were in the drift - no program was driving their heads into a mutual connection and there was no urgency behind the threat of attack. Traumatizing memories were no longer a potentially life-threatening risk and they had no worries of maintaining flow of thought. The two pilots let their heads feel their ways around each other, familiarizing themselves with the other’s thought patterns and fond memories and resting states.

“I didn’t know you were so afraid,” said Izzy. She sat beside her fellow pilot, mirroring his position when she found that it made the dull throbbing in her not-injured leg a little easier to bear. “When we first drifted.”

“I’m always afraid,” Gold grunted, but there was no hiding it. She’d been railroaded by his angry, self-blaming mentality enough by now.

“You’re not,” argued Izzy gently. “I’ve been in your head, remember.”

“Then you know how scared I was.” His mind cringed away from hers, just a hair. Ripples of shame were stirring there. “How terrified.”

“But you didn’t let that control you.” She nudged him with one elbow and this time he didn’t flinch at the contact. She allowed herself a small smile at that. _“I_ was scared, but you were there to make sure I would be all right. You anchored me.”

Gold’s mind shrank even further from hers at that. Her praise only served to unnerve him, like he felt that he wasn’t deserving of it.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said at last. “It doesn’t change what I did. ‘The Man Who Ran,’ that was me. ‘Coward.’ My son was in danger, and all I could think of to do was _run.”_

“Don’t,” Izzy interrupted sharply. “Don’t find a way to blame yourself for that.”

“Ten years too late on that one,” the older pilot said bitterly. _“I_ was the one out of alignment. _I_ was the one who ran. And Neal paid the price. They were all right about that _\- ‘coward’.”_

“Cowards only think of themselves.” She put a consoling hand on his shoulder, a movement that was becoming almost routine at this point. “Before we even headed out, you were more worried about _me._ And don’t bother saying you weren’t - I was in there with you.” The hand shifted from the shoulder to tap the side of Gold’s head, feather-light, and his scowl faded into a reluctant half-smile. “That’s not how a coward thinks.”

She could tell the topic still bothered him, but he let it drop in favor of watching the sparse maintenance crew swarm over Spindle’s exterior as they began to detach portions of its plated exterior to patch the damage done within. The smile didn’t fade as he watched. However much he might pretend otherwise, Izzy knew a fairly large part of him was privately happy to be back in the familiar territory of the cockpit, no matter how off-putting the early hostility of the other pilots may have been. Yet even that joy was tempered with pangs of loss. The contradictory nature of it all sent Izzy’s heart hurting for him. 

“One thing I don’t know I’ll ever understand,” Gold spoke up unexpectedly. His thoughts had sunk into a lull of troubled memories, though evidently the thought had just occurred to him. “Is why the Marshal chose to restore the Spindle, of all jaegers. She could have picked any machine to salvage, but she settled for this old Mark II.”

“Well, I had some suggestions on that front,” Izzy confessed, dipping her head shyly. “The Marshal had plans to bring you in at that point, and aside from missing its leg and some central parts, Spindle was in fairly good condition.”

“A matter of convenience, then.” The smirk was back, but it lacked its warmth, so it just came off as a vaguely sardonic grimace. “I see.”

God but he could be so stubborn in perpetually seeing the worst in people. It all tied directly into the same agelastic, remorseless epicenter that was Neal’s untimely death and the inflorescence of negative associations that stemmed from that singular event.

“It might also have to do with how you two knew each other.” Izzy had glimpsed it in his memories, just barely, though they’d both been a little caught up in his past with Neal to give it any proper focus. It had taken her a moment to recognize the Marshal’s younger, more optimistic face in the scurry of shadowy thoughts in her fellow pilot’s head.

Gold snorted.

“That would be a _very_ liberal interpretation of that part of our history.” He transferred his gaze from Spindle to the ground, jaw tightening. “We entered the program together at roughly the same time. I worked with Regina long before she was a Marshal, and long before everything - well.” 

_Well._ It was only courtesy of their ghost-drift connection that Izzy caught on to the full implications behind the clipped syllable. The first jaegers going down on the field, the program starting to falter, the world tipping down the slope of its own slow and inevitable self-destruction, and, _well,_ everything.

“You never talk to each other,” Izzy said. “Except to yell and generally disagree on just about everything.”

“What is there to say?” Gold’s mind was already shying away from this subject as much as it had the last, which likely meant there were unresolved issues here as well. Izzy was growing adept at reading those nonverbal thought-waves. She chose to interpret that relatively new development as a good thing.

“You have the same grief. She lost her co-pilot, just as you lost yours. You both piloted solo and suffered the consequences.” Could he _really_ not see the similarities lurking there? Or did he simply not want to? She wouldn’t put it past him to keep himself willfully ignorant, even if in general Gold tended to know more than he let on.

“Yes, and we both dealt with it,” he hissed back, plainly annoyed. He didn’t have any desire to get to know the Marshal any more than he had already. Izzy didn’t need a lingering neurological connection to discern _that._ She began to follow that meandering line of thought, curious as to where it might lead, but his thoughts clamped down over hers, blocking her out. “There’s nothing there that needs knowing, Miss French. Don’t go looking.”

The fact that he’d dropped the informality of her first name did not escape her, but Izzy kept quiet about it. She allowed him to resume gazing at Spindle while the various members of the cobbled-together repair team performed whatever trivial, habitual repairs that were required of them. The temptation of nostalgia hungered away in the hindmost part of Gold’s skull, but he determinedly kept his attention on what was purely material. Instead of reliving the past for the umpteenth time, he chose to marvel at the expertise and skill with which the Spindle Gauntlet had been restored. Izzy couldn’t help but agree - she could hardly tell the thing had ever been in such a destructive battle to begin with. There were still scuffs and scratches along Spindle’s arms and torso, trophies from her last tussle, but this time she had walked away successful. Izzy and Gold found that detail equally pleasing.

“What’s it stand for?” Izzy asked abruptly, jarring them out of the comfortable lapse in their conversation. “The crest, I mean.”

To her relief, the question proved to be in Gold’s neural safe zone and stirred up no further unwanted memories. He even smiled as he gently took her hand and opened it, palm upward, only she noticed the bruising on his knuckles.

“Did you hit something recently?” Izzy wondered aloud. She received a brief impression of frustration about clicking with the wrong candidate boiling over and a fist hitting metal.

She blinked. “You hit a _wall?”_

Gold looked sheepish.

“Moving on.”

He began to trace a pattern on her open palm with a careful fingertip. The whisper of his finger over her hand immediately drew all sensory output to the invisible shapes he was sketching there and successfully diverted her attention.

“For the crest, you have the two outer rings,” he explained, drawing two concentric circles on her open palm. Izzy had to scrunch up her shoulders to keep from giggling - it _tickled._ “For the two pilots, obviously. And within those you have the solid disc with the hole in it. That’s the jaeger, the gauntlet. Then the line goes through it all.” He punctuated the words with a faint skim of his fingertip over the whole invisible picture on her hand. “And that’s the needle.”

“What’s it mean?” The importance of the symbol to Gold’s history was drumming a steady tempo in his head. The urge to laugh at the tickle of his finger on her hand vanished once she felt it. “The needle? Aside from the obvious, I mean.”

“What, the spindle?” This time Gold’s smile was laced with sorrow. And there it was, the oil slick of sadness around his heart, laid bare and black. “That was Neal’s idea. We were never conventional pilots. Too much bobbing and weaving and not enough straight-up brawling. That was the thing of it, the needle. Small and quick, like us. And the jaeger was that needle, the tool through which the thread could work its magic.”

“The pilots.”

Gold was silent for a spell. Then the smile fluttered and faded, the sad eyes dropped from hers, and his mouth once again folded into its hard, stubborn line.

“It was much cleverer, the way Neal used to say it.”

“I think it’s perfect,” Izzy told him with complete sincerity. She couldn’t allow him to fall back into his familiar pattern of bitterness and blame, not when he’d gotten so good at finally opening up. “And I think Neal would agree.”

“Of course he would,” Gold snorted. “He came up with it.”

“I think I would have liked to meet him,” she said softly.

“I think he would have liked that too.” 

For a long while, there was nothing left to be said. Izzy gradually became aware of the fact that his hand was still covering hers. The thought occurred to him at the same time, but neither did anything to draw attention to it, even when Izzy gingerly began to weave her fingers a little closer to his until they were quite definitively holding hands. She was getting better at this whole nonverbal communication thing, she could tell, because his grip on her hand tightened, just a slight pulse of pressure, for a slender hair of a second as if in reply. And they continued to sit, wordless, watching Spindle Gauntlet as her repairs were slowly finished and the maintenance crew cleared away. Eventually the section of the docking bay was empty, save for the two people who simply sat drawing comfort from the shared contact, minds as densely intertwined as their fingers. 

It was only when the lights in the viewing deck area began to click off, one by one, that they descended the stairs and made their way down the mazelike halls of the Shatterdome. Their hands didn’t slip away until they were forced to part to their own individual quarters. Even then, their minds continued to wander between each other in blissful silence, all the way into dreaming.


	22. Chapter 22

Regina had headed the Jaeger Program for nearly seven years as its Marshal. She ran the place with ruthless efficiency and minimal casualties. Her run as pilot had ended with an impressive six-kaiju kill count and even before then, everyone in the Academy knew she was a force to be reckoned with. Her fellow pilots had known her as steely and resolute, and her Rangers of today thought her doubly so.

She did _not_ get _nervous._

Especially _now._

In the moments before Emma arrived at the (mercifully empty) combat ring in the Kwoon, Regina found herself pacing. Walking, rather. Just walking. She wasn’t _nervous._ She _wasn’t._ Emma Swan was a rookie ten years out of the field and Regina Mills was the Marshal of the entire Jaeger Program and Regina had proved many times over that she was perfectly capable of taking on a _rookie,_ thank _you_ very much.

(She was Marshal of what was _left_ of the Jaeger Program, if one wanted to get technical.)

(The tattered remnants that almost certainly wouldn’t last much longer, not at the rate they were going.)

(She was doing her _best,_ damn it, with what few resources remained.)

This idea wasn’t even going to _work,_ Regina thought with an unconscious sneer. It was just wish fulfillment on Swan’s part, nothing more. And she was doing this to prove her _wrong._

Right. Exactly. On point.

Right.

“Ready?” Swan had managed to slink in undetected, much to Regina’s chagrin. Combat staff in hand, twirling it cheerfully - much more cheerfully than she’d ever been before, the Marshal thought suspiciously - and apparently ready to start.

Regina snorted. “Of course.”

It had been a while since she’d done any real combat exercises, as Marshalling and commandeering about the Shatterdomes was much more a diplomacy-based position, but Regina was fairly certain she had retained enough over the years to pose a significant threat to one overconfident rookie. They silently counted from the Marshal’s signal of three to start the match and, without further ado, began circling one another warily.

Emma attacked first, which Regina had fully anticipated.

Her strike was straightforward and easily parried, which Regina had fully anticipated.

She followed up with a few experimental swings, which Regina had fully anticipated.

And then instead of countering Regina’s first direct attack, she ducked and used the strike as leverage to unbalance her opponent, then knock her to the ground with a well-aimed jab.

Which Regina had most definitely _not_ anticipated.

For a split second she allowed herself to be impressed that this recruit who’d been out of the program for ten years had bested her so quickly before before she returned to chafing at the easy defeat. Though, to her credit, even _Emma_ looked positively _shocked_ at that one, blinking down at the Marshal with an expression that could only be described as an odd mixture of concern, triumph, and astonishment.

“Uh…” Emma stepped back, allowing Regina to her feet. “Um. Lucky strike?”

Regina huffed out a scornful noise in the back of her throat that sounded an awful lot like _“hah”_ before squaring herself up to her enemy for the second time. Her grip tightened on her combat staff until her knuckles were pale; she was determined not to fall for this woman, poorly trained and relying far too much on shameless improvisation, again. It wasn’t dignified, and it simply wasn’t _done._ She had no intention of turning this little means of humoring Miss Swan’s good graces into an outright humiliation.

Again they began, and Regina really must have been more out of practice than she thought, because she went down _again_ when Emma hooked her staff beneath Regina’s ankle (with a good deal of fumbling and cursing, leading her to think it had been something of an accident) and sent the two tumbling down on top of each other in a graceless heap. Emma got the haft of her staff up just in time to hover it over Regina’s throat, signifying a clear defeat, but the wide-eyed dismay on her face - her face that had landed a good deal closer to Regina’s face than was really _strictly_ necessary - was enough for the Marshal’s suspicions to be confirmed: she’d won over a _mistake._

By the third time they engaged, Regina didn’t think she’d come up against someone so wildly, hopelessly disorganized. There was absolutely _no_ form or order to Emma’s attacks. There must have been _some_ strategy behind the sporadic blows, but Regina could not for the life of her discern what it could possibly be.

So she chose to do the same. Which, she had to privately admit, was more than a little difficult for Regina Mills, who was very much the sort of person to prefer structure and order to the lack thereof, but it only took a little scrambling of her own techniques to catch Emma off guard when Regina got a mark on her unchecked right side. She had time for a tiny smirk of victory before Emma whirled on her, trying to take advantage of her short lapse in attention. The next storm of blows was as uncoordinated and fierce as any of Emma’s others, but the Marshal had come away with a better handle on how her opponent’s mind worked. She relied a _little_ too much on the element of surprise in her unpredictability. But if there was one thing Regina could count on her to be, it was inconsistent. _Consistently_ inconsistent.

And Emma had no idea how predictable her unpredictability had become. Her seemingly random blows had thought and calculation behind them after all, it seemed, so now it was just the simple matter of using that _against_ her - 

\- and _whap-crack-whack,_ Regina had Emma pinned against the wall with the business end of a staff at her neck. Just like that, they were tied up, and now there was surprise of an entirely different kind behind Swan’s eyes. Surprise, mingled with just the right amount of wonder. Or - could it be _dread?_

Whatever it was, it only increased when Regina scored her third victory, sweeping Emma to the ground with a well-placed system of strikes and a flourish. Emma scrambled to her feet, panting heavily, but now the wariness had been replaced with grim determination. She went at Regina with renewed vigor, staffs whacking one another in rapid staccato. Regina had anticipated Emma’s trademark fierceness but had not accounted for her adaptability - she was now deliberately aping Regina’s parries and counters as she pushed her furious offense. Every jab, feint, strike Regina made was barred from her, with Emma waiting at every twist and turn. She drove Regina back, back, back, up into a corner, and before the Marshal knew it there were no windows for escape - 

“Three-three,” Emma announced breathlessly after she’d disarmed Regina in one whipcrack movement. _Disarmed._ Things like that just _did not happen_ to Regina. She was the _Marshal._

Regina retrieved her combat staff and re-initiated the combat without a word. For a long while, she could discern little else besides the blur of blow after blow and the clacking of wood on wood. The two women grappled, almost to a standstill, each frustrated with her inability to overcome the other, until Emma made use of those erratic tactics she was so fond of to abruptly stop attacking and simply resorted to bobbing, ducking, dodging. Confused, Regina didn’t know what else to do other than to up her onslaught, but her attacks to met empty air each time. And just as Regina began to feel herself slip into that rhythm of avoidance - no, both of them, both in peculiar rhythm - Emma _blocked, countered, feinted -_

\- and forced Regina against the wall, center of her staff at the Marshal’s throat.

They remained in that position for far too long as both their minds caught up to _what the hell had just happened._

 _“Shit,”_ breathed Emma as she rushed back in a stumbling retreat. “Did you - you _did,_ didn’t you?”

“What?” snapped Regina. She rubbed her neck bad-temperedly, silently fuming over the fact that she’d just been beaten by a _rookie,_ of all people. All right, so she was out of physical practice and maybe she wasn’t the only one to fall at Emma Swan’s hands, but that didn’t change that she was the _Marshal._

The Marshal who was…was…

“We’re drift compatible.” Emma had dropped her staff with a wooden clatter and was pacing the diameter of the room frantically. “I mean - _shit._ I didn’t really _think_ \- you felt it, right?”

Regina had almost forgotten the entire point of the fight, and her stomach promptly dropped away.

“You mean to say - ”

“You, me!” Emma pointed wildly. “We’re _drift compatible.”_

Repeating the phrase did _not_ make the revelation any more palatable.

Emma halted and stared at the wall, dumbstruck. 

“I’m drift compatible with the _fucking Marshal.”_ Then the corner of her mouth quirked into a puzzled half-grin. “Well go goddamn figure.”

“That - no, that doesn’t - ” Regina massaged the bridge of her nose. “That doesn’t make any sense.” And it didn’t, it _really_ didn’t. There was nothing - _they couldn’t even get along on a regular basis._ They defied each other on such a _basic level:_ Regina was the _Marshal_ and Emma was - _not._ She had _years_ of experience to sustain her command while Emma had, until now, barely scraped by with what little she could remember. She was cool, controlled, Emma bright and blazing; Regina restrained and calculating, Emma worryingly volatile. 

It didn’t make any _sense._

“But you felt it!” 

“I - ” Regina recalled their fight, heart in her throat. She hadn’t been fully _aware_ of it at the time, likely too caught up in the conflict at hand, but the low, swooping feeling in her chest had been unmistakable. At several points they’d counteracted each other with perfect synchronicity. 

At that point Regina began to feel very dizzy and had to sit down. 

“Well,” she said weakly. “It appears we are.”

“Okay, but it _does_ make sense!” Emma seemed, for the first time she’d arrived here, properly excited by it all, but Regina couldn’t feel less like celebrating. “We contradict each other, sure, but that could be, like, I don’t know - we’re too - ” For the second time, she stopped dead in her feverish pacing. “We’re too _alike.”_

“Alike,” Regina repeated flatly. “I can’t think of two people _less_ suited to share a head.”

“You can deny it all you want,” Emma flashed back. “But I _know_ you felt it. The reason I haven’t found a co-pilot is because - ”

“What, because _I’m_ your co-pilot?” sneered the Marshal. “I doubt that very much.”

“No.” Emma knelt in front of her. Her eyes searched a desperate answer to what she _so_ wanted to believe. “Because I’m _yours.”_

For a minute, Regina had trouble vocalizing a response. Until finally - 

“No. That was just - ”

“Oh, _don’t_ say it was a coincidence or an accident or a fluke or whatever the _hell_ you were about to say.” Emma surged to her feet, practically vibrating with the energy that stood stark and clean in the taut lines of her shoulders. “That’s not how this sort of thing works and you damn well _know_ it.” Regina didn’t like the firm tone in Emma’s voice. It reminded her a little too much of herself when she - 

Oh.

_Oh._

Okay.

So.

Maybe they _did_ have something in common. 

(It was a _very_ small something.)

“Besides, it’s the world at stake, right?” Emma flung out a hand in wild gesticulation. “Greater good and all that?” 

_The world. Right._

Regina sighed and put her head in her hands.

“I’m not a pilot, Emma.”

“No, but you were.”

 _“Years_ ago.” She spat the words out like venom. If flat-out aggression wasn’t going to persuade this intensely stubborn woman that her ideas of “drift compatibility” weren’t entirely up to scratch, maybe blunt honesty would. She ran one hand through her hair, dropping the other over her knees. “It’s been a long time since I’ve stepped into the drift. I don’t know if I could do that again.”

“Hey, if I can do it, you can do it.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Then we’ll _make_ it work. Wasn’t that the whole point of dragging me here in the first place?”

Regina’s hand crept back up to knead itself furiously into her temples. She wasn’t _completely_ averse to drifting with Emma, willful and stubborn as the other woman was. Frankly, it was the thought of stepping back into a jaeger in the first place that gave her more pause. But the issue wasn’t simply that she and Emma were apparently drift compatible. Or, well, to be precise, it _was,_ but things were more complicated than that. The _issue_ more or less arose from how Regina had unwittingly forced herself into a corner. She’d done Emma no favors in continuing to stress how important it was she find herself a pilot, and now that she had there was no reasonable way for the Marshal to back out. It truly _had_ been years since she’d shared a head with someone, and for the first time Regina understood with perfect clarity Gold’s reluctance to do the same. 

(Along with a certain twinge of guilt that she’d still forced him to go through with it despite understanding exactly where he was coming from.)

And _still_ Emma pushed the issue. She wanted affirmation, of course, approval of some sort. She wanted _acceptance_ , and she believed she’d found it with her evident drift compatibility with the Marshal.

She’d only be disappointed.

The Marshal stood, jaw tight, and exited the Kwoon without another word.


	23. Chapter 23

Of course the only two people Emma was drift compatible with just _had_ to be her two current least favorite people in the world.

Figures. _Fucking_ figures.

It wasn’t like she _hated_ the Marshal, not really. But Regina was just so - so goddamn _adamant_ in refusing their apparent compatibility. And, yeah, Emma could get that a bit. The whole thing had caught her by surprise too.

And now Regina was no longer speaking to her.

What was more, she appeared to be _deliberately avoiding_ her. What is she, _twelve?_

Emma swore loudly and nearly slammed a palm into the wall as she glimpsed the back of the Marshal’s head, seconds before the elevator doors hissed shut in front of her. This was the third time as many hours. However long it had been since the last time they’d butted heads, though it had admittedly been in a more literal sense this time around.

“In a hurry?” droned a very familiar and equally unwanted voice. Emma groaned as she faced its owner.

“Trying to catch the Marshal on her way out is all,” she said shortly. 

Gold simply stood and looked at her, head barely to one side with only a tiny furrow on his brow to betray his curiosity. He stood easily, unsupported despite his old injury. And watched.

Emma tried not to grind her teeth.

“Something you wanted?”

“Just making an observation.” Even Gold’s light, innocuous tone couldn’t disguise his intrigue. He might be skilled at hiding himself beneath layers of cold, dry cynicism and caustic humor, but Emma had always been rather good at reading people. “You’ve been trying to talk to her for some time now. Might be she’s avoiding you.” It wasn’t truly a question, but the faint brush of inquiry still hovered there. 

“Yeah, well.” Emma folded her arms, carefully keeping her expression hard and neutral. “She’s the Marshal. Important position. Things to do and all that.”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s it.” 

He made no move to leave. 

Well, all right, then. Fine. Time to take matters into her own hands. Regina was likely headed to either the LOCCENT mission control or the research department to yell at the science team for some reason or another, so Emma would just have to meet her on the way. She set off at a brisk pace through the halls of the Shatterdome, hastily mapping out the building’s interior plan as she went. To her supreme annoyance, Gold followed, somehow able to both maintain his languorous, limping stride _and_ keep up with her, which was just _not fair._

“There a reason you’re following me?” she growled through clenched teeth as they rounded their fourth corner and started down their second flight of the unstable metal slats that the maintenance crews liked to call “stairs.” 

“I’m just wondering how it is that _you’ve_ spent almost your entire time here trying to avoid _her,_ and why it is now that things are suddenly the other way around,” Gold said mildly.

Emma stopped. And glared.

“What’s it to you?”

Pause. 

“Perhaps I’m just observant.”

“Oh, come on, Gold. I don’t buy that. What’s your investment in all this?”

He cast a furtive glance down one of the halls, then inched closer.

“My co-pilot recently shed light on some similarities the Marshal and I share. She’s having trouble handling the stress of her position; I might be able to help.”

“Right.” Emma snorted a little too loudly. No _way_ would she believe that something so uncharacteristically selfless was his idea. “Because you’ve obviously dealt with stress real well in the past. No offense, but I don’t think she has time for a ten-year sabbatical, or whatever it was you did all that time you were apparently MIA.”

“Not at all hypocritical, coming from you.” Gold’s smooth composure slipped for a terrible instant as he sniped back.

“Why do _you_ even care?” Emma bristled. She _so_ did not have time for whatever game he was playing at right now, verbal jibes notwithstanding.

“Why do _you?”_

The two glowered for a moment, neither willing to shed any clarity on the situation to the other. Then the childishness of the whole thing dawned on Emma and she folded first, sighing wearily as she dropped the hostility in her stance and resumed walking.

“Regina and I are drift compatible,” she admitted dully. 

There. It wasn’t like it was some great secret. Maybe the more people who knew the less Regina would be able to hide it

“‘Regina?’ You two are on first-name basis now?” 

“Figures _that_ would be the detail you choose to pick up on,” Emma grumbled. “Yes. We did the whole test and everything and that’s why we haven’t been, well. She doesn’t seem to want to admit it.”

“Can you blame her?”

“Gee, thanks.”

“That isn’t - ” Gold ground to a halt, his irritation making itself known in the sharp furrow of his brow. He seemed to have abandoned his usual impartial approach. “I meant primarily on _her_ part. She’s unwilling to open up after losing someone in her past, and understandably so.”

“Right, I forgot you have experience in that area.” Emma couldn’t help but be scathing. She and Gold might not strictly be on ‘ignore and avoid’ terms anymore, but that didn’t necessarily mean she enjoyed conversation with the man. “So, what? You get a new co-pilot and suddenly you’re all cuddly with everyone? Your solution is _really_ for her to just - move on?”

“I never said that,” he growled. “Though it might be that advice is more relevant to _you_ than our good Marshal.”

“Oh, _don’t.”_ Emma’s tone was cold, unwavering, carefully controlled. She met Gold’s gaze squarely, the warning stark in the hardness of the words. “I do _not_ have time for this.”

“Then why don’t you go find her instead of wasting your time with me?”

Emma didn’t dignify his retort with an answer, especially when she was sure it would quickly launch itself into ‘being fluent in profanity’ territory. Whatever else she could say about their relationship, at least they’d always been civil. Casual taunts and subtle jabs, that was Gold. She contented herself with setting off resolutely again, the movement giving her the illusion that she had a strategy to convince Regina in mind.

(Emma would rather just hit things, but there was no way she was letting _him_ know that.)

(That was assuming he didn’t already.)

(He probably did.)

(God damn that man.)

Mercifully, Gold didn’t follow. He stayed where he was, at the junction between four halls, as Emma took to the research department in search of her errant Marshal. Gold had always been a bit of a wild card in her book, but it was her relationship with Regina that concerned her the most presently. Now, finally, she was determined that something should come of it. This was the first drift candidate she actually had a _chance_ with, and there was no way she’d be giving that up on the grounds that Regina _didn’t like her._ Marshal or not, they had that connection. Besides, in any other case wouldn’t it be typical of Regina to announce that they take advantage of such a thing?

Emma knew she was nearing the research department when the escalating voices began to float her way.

“We’ve dropped bombs in there in the past - they just bounce back out! You can’t tell me your _genius solution_ to that problem is to just _build a bigger bomb!”_

“I never _said_ that.”

“Oh, good! Because that solution is _brilliant,_ really. Nothing’s worked in the past, so we’re just going to take that _nothing_ and multiply it by _ten,_ how about that? What’s that math equal to, again?”

“I didn’t say _build a bigger bomb._ I’m just suggesting that there might be something in the Throat that repels nuclear substances, so maybe we just need a different approach! A different _kind_ of bomb.”

“We have less than fifty-two hours to engineer a solution before the next event, Hopper, so we’d better come up with something better than _‘maybe we need a different bomb’_ before then. Triple event means the Throat will be opened wider than it’s _ever_ been!”

“I _realize_ that, Whale. Which is why I’m suggesting something _different_ this time around - ”

“Uh, guys?” Emma poked her head into the research department and did her best to ignore the strange scene that greeted her. The two scientists were squaring off, and Whale was holding what appeared to be holding several large, slippery strings of kaiju viscera in his (thankfully gloved) hands. 

The scientists turned to look at her, twin expressions of comical alarm stamped on both faces. 

Emma decided to ride right past the part where they jumped into simultaneous explanations of whatever problem they were debating and dove right into what she wanted to know. 

“Has the Marshal been here recently?”

They shook their heads in unison, faces still sharing identical furrowed brows and puzzled eyes. It would have been amusing if Emma wasn’t so preoccupied with locating the obstinate Marshal. Hell, the idiots would probably be drift compatible if they took the time to stop arguing - 

\- And Emma’s apparent eagerness to relate to completely irrelevant people was off the charts today.

Grand.

“Right,” she forced herself to smile and nod politely. “Well, uh. Thanks.”

That left LOCCENT mission control. Emma could hear the heated discussion resuming as if there had been no interruption once she retreated from the room, and fought back a smile.

Regina was one step ahead of her, evidently. Emma reached LOCCENT control to find it nearly empty. There was only Leroy and the bare minimum of technicians maintaining their posts with automated laziness - it was only in an actual event that they got kicked into overdrive, she supposed.

“The Marshal wasn’t in here recently, was she?” she asked Leroy, ignoring how much the unfamiliar quiet of the place unnerved her.

“Hm? Uh, yeah, you just missed her, actually. Why?”

Emma’s heart sank. “Doesn’t matter. Know where she could be now?”

Leroy shrugged. “No idea.”

“Great. Thanks.” 

The turn of the hour found Emma in the mess hall, chin resting on one of the long metal tables with her arms folded just beneath her nose. The various crews and workers on maintenance meandered around her on lunch breaks but not even the distant complaining of her gut could rouse Emma to get some of the overcooked _stuff_ that passed for food here. 

“You look cheerful today.”

Emma hadn’t expected anyone to take notice, but okay then. This was happening now. Mary sat down across from her, two trays in hand, her husband strangely absent. She slid the second tray to Emma.

She sat up, unexpectedly touched by the small gesture.

“Um. Thanks.” For the first time this morning, Emma was actually earnest about the word. She stabbed her fork into a clump of dubious-looking potatoes and began to eat.

“So.” Mary leaned forward, sympathetic smile at the ready. “Do I want to know?”

“Probably not.” David wasn’t overly fond of the Marshal. Emma had always assumed that animosity extended to his wife. They _did_ share the same head from time to time and all. Mary was one of the first people to extend a friendly hand to Emma, and she didn’t want to jeopardize that tentative relationship now.

“So I’m guessing co-pilot troubles,” Mary went on, unperturbed. “Am I getting warm?”

 _No, but I am._ Regina had just entered the mess, taken one look at Emma eating lunch with a jaeger pilot, and went straight back the way she came. Emma practically vaulted out of her seat to tear after her, ignoring Mary’s exclamation of surprise.

She caught at Regina’s elbow and yanked, practically forcing the other woman to face her.

“All right, _what?”_ Emma demanded furiously. “What have you got against me that makes you so _scared_ of what we’ve got?”

“What we’ve _got?”_ Regina thundered back, not at all taken aback by Emma’s aggression. “I’m the _Marshal,_ Miss Swan, not a pilot!”

“Does that really even _matter_ anymore? Come the end of the world, do you think the kaiju will _care_ who was who or what position anyone held? You told me - no!” Regina tried to roll her eyes and turn away but Emma snatched at her arm and tugged at her to face her again. “You _told_ me, you told me after the double event that the only choice any of us have is how we die. You’re really telling me you’d rather die in the Shatterdome than in a _jaeger?”_

Regina’s throat tautened as Emma turned her own words against her but she said nothing.

“What are you so _scared_ of?” Emma searched the Marshal’s glare frantically. A foreign desperation had clawed itself up in her chest and _she didn’t know what to do about it._

For a long moment, the Marshal was silent. Her eyes slipped to the floor, then, and one hand reached up to subconsciously rub at her elbow. The hostility hadn’t completely crumbled away, but there was an openness and vulnerability to the action.

Finally, she spoke. 

“Why are you so determined to make this happen?”

“Because I think we could.” Emma shrugged helplessly. “I think we’re that last chance you keep talking about. And - ” Well, they were going for honesty and everything, so why not lay it all out? “And I’m tired of being alone. I’m sure you are, too. There’s quiet in both our heads, and we’re the sorts of people who are wired to have _something_ going on in there.”

“You believe we really could?” Regina’s voice was confused and small. Her usual commanding air had completely fallen away. “Drift?”

“Hey, you felt it, right?”

Slowly, the Marshal nodded.

“Can’t hurt to _try,”_ said Emma.

Regina let out a mirthless, barking laugh. “Actually, it can. It can hurt quite a lot. But if you’re sure - ”

“We really got a choice at this point?”

“Fair enough.” Regina’s eyes finally wandered up to meet Emma’s. There was hesitancy there, along with a wild mix of confusion and fear and grief, but she went on calmly. “We’ll run a test tonight. If all goes well, then we’ll have our final crew.”

Emma’s breath hitched in her throat.

“Um. Okay.” She hadn’t expected the Marshal to comply after so much staunch resistance to the proposal, but maybe it was that the impact of their situation had struck her in full force now. Maybe she _had_ given her own statement some thought and come to the conclusion she’d rather go down fighting than cheering from the sidelines.

“I’ll see you at 1700 hours, Miss Swan.”

“All right, uh. Marshal.” Emma nodded awkwardly, and took advantage of the lull that followed to hurry back to the mess before Regina could change her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, the editing notes for this chapter said very little besides the following:
> 
> "YOOOOOO ANGST ANGST ANGST ANGST ANGST ANGST ANGST ANGST YO"
> 
> I like to think I was very succinct.


	24. Chapter 24

Emma Swan was acting a great deal more rattled than usual, Gold reflected as he watched her take off at practically a jog down one of the Shatterdome’s winding corridors. He let her go without any further intrusion.

For the life of him, he could not fathom why he’d brought up wanting to ‘help’ when he’d honestly had no intention of doing so. He’d glimpsed Emma in the halls and accompanied her for a spell out of intrigue.

And, possibly, to annoy her.

He scowled. Izzy’s words from the day before still drifted with him, even if their ghost connection had already almost faded into the more distant patterns of his brain. She’d brought it up like it was nothing, how he and the Marshal had _things in common_ and that therefore meant he should reach out and Do Something about it. And she might have a point, at least on the part where they’d both lost someone important - but who here _hadn’t?_ He had no obligation to do anything for the Marshal besides follow orders, fight and die for a cause that wasn’t even his to begin with. Anyhow, helping her was Emma’s job, at least if what she said about her and Regina was true.

He was still standing there, quietly musing over the issue, when the sound of approaching footsteps lurched him out of it. Gold almost instinctively dodged out of the way and slunk down one of the halls - any of them, really, he wasn’t picky about escape routes - but forced himself to stay where he was. Whoever was coming had already seen him at this point, he was certain, and there wasn’t much point in hiding. All he could really do now was make a show of how little he cared.

Which was proving rather difficult, considering the footsteps changed their tune once they rounded the corner and started coming toward _him_ instead.

“Gold.” 

Ah, no, he _really_ wasn’t in the mood to do this right now.

_“Gold.”_

“I do hate to say it,” he said acidly, voice steady and eyes trained on the floor. “But I don’t currently have time for this, Nolan.”

David folded his arms and stared at him stubbornly.

“That’s unfortunate.” He didn’t sound remotely sorry.

“Yes, I’m sure. Now if you’ll - ”

“No, we’re doing this now.”

Gold felt his heart begin to pound, stomach knotting sickeningly. Whatever David wanted to bring up, he could probably do well without hearing, thank you. He’d only just begun to walk the halls with relative steadiness and a pseudo-confidence that belied the low background noise of memory intermingled with fear. He did _not_ need David’s self-righteousness setting him back further.

“Very well, then, be quick about it,” Gold snapped gracelessly.

David shifted on his feet, glanced over his shoulder, and leaned forward.

“All right, look. I know we don’t - we never got along, even when we were working together the first time. I don’t completely trust you, you never much liked me, and all right, fine. We lived with it.”

“Ah, memory,” Gold said with false-pitched nostalgia. David’s glower deepened at the run of sarcasm. To his credit, he continued despite the other man’s lack of cooperation.

“Point is, you saved our lives the other day. And whatever you’ve done in your past, however much I might - disagree with some of your methods, I owe you thanks for that. And you should know that.”

For an uncomfortably long moment, Gold said nothing. He stretched the silence as far as he could before finally flicking his eyes up to meet Nolan’s.

“Wow,” he murmured, injecting as much quiet contempt as he could into the word. “How much effort did _that_ take?”

“All right, you know what?” David raised both hands in a universal _I’m done_ gesture. “You can’t even take someone’s real, _genuine_ gratitude seriously. I said what I needed to and - right, yeah.” He began to walk back the way he came, reconsidered, and turned back. “You know, I thought maybe after all this time, you’d have changed or, or that things would be different. Somehow? But - ” The corner of his mouth twitched with distaste, disappointment, or something to that effect. “I shouldn’t’ve bothered. You’re still the same man you always were - selfish. Scared.” 

Gold didn’t answer, but he found he could no longer meet the other man’s scathing gaze. Mercifully, David seemed done with his tirade, taking Gold’s silence as a cue to go on his own way. 

As angry footsteps faded, Gold let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in a long, slow rush. 

_Selfish. Scared._ David had must have thought he was being appropriately biting with those comments, but it wasn’t like this was _news_ to the other man. He knew well enough what he was and what he’d done and didn’t need reminding from touchy, sanctimonious rangers who thought they understood him better than he did. _They_ hadn’t had to live in his grief-torn head for ten years.

With a twinge of annoyance, Gold realized he’d just indirectly proved Izzy’s earlier words correct - he and the Marshal _did_ have that in common. 

This knowledge did little to improve his mood.

He chose not to dwell on Nolan’s choice of insult. There wasn’t much to be done about them, in any case - Gold had saved the man’s life, not to mention the life of his fellow pilot and wife, and that hadn’t given him much of a favorable assessment in the Nolan’s book. He still thoroughly disliked him, and Gold didn’t much hold it against him. He himself still had trouble looking past the selfish, frightened coward to judge the man within, and he couldn’t exactly blame others if they did as well.

The day’s frustrations still itched at him. He limped off and wandered. To Gold’s relief, he located his own co-pilot in the mess. He wordlessly joined her.

Even as he sat across from her, Gold wasn’t sure Izzy knew he had even entered the room to begin with, absorbed as she was in the battered-looking paperback she was attempting to read while eating. ‘Attempting’ would be the operative word there, as she was presently only really succeeding in the former. Gold watched, mildly entertained by Izzy’s repeated efforts to bring the fork halfway to her mouth only for her eyes to widen at whatever great twist had occurred in the tiny printed words on the page. The fork would hover for a minute before gradually lowering again, her interest in the story renewed. Gold watched, a smile straining to make its way out of his carefully detached expression, and resolved to disrupt Izzy’s rapt attention on the book before it could do so.

“Good book, then?” he asked, the amusement thick in his voice despite his best efforts. Izzy looked up, blue eyes wide and startled, until her face relaxed into a smile. She laughed.

“How long have you been sitting there?”

He smirked. Well, that hadn’t lasted long. “Ten minutes, give or take.”

Izzy smacked his elbow lightly, closed the book, and finally began to eat. “You’re horrible.”

“And you’re hopelessly inefficient at multitasking.”

“Touché,” she said, inclining her head, but the smile still wasn’t gone from her words. “How’ve you been, then?”

Gold grew somber at the question almost at once. He tapped the side of his head and lifted one shoulder noncommittally. 

“Adjusting?” Izzy guessed.

“More or less.” 

“I’m sorry.”

He snorted and looked away. “It’s hardly your fault.”

 _“Please,”_ she said, rolling her eyes. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. Ghost drift or not, you know me better than that.”

The words were firm, lacking any of the vitriol Gold was used to, but her reprimand caused him to hunch his shoulders in slight shame regardless. The gentle disapproval of his co-pilot filled him with far more guilt than any insult dropped by David Nolan. 

Izzy caught onto his reaction at once, but as she reached one hand toward his, he quickly changed the subject.

“Thought of talking to Mills today.” He shrugged evasively as if to prove he’d only considered it fleetingly, not as a serious gesture. Which he hadn’t. He hadn’t been serious about it. Not remotely.

“Did you?” She sounded - _proud_ of him, almost. That was an odd feeling.

“I didn’t actually,” he hastily added. “Just thought about it is all.”

“It’s a start,” she answered warmly. This time she did take hold of his hand, gently threading her fingers with his. “I’m glad.”

Gold huffed quietly and tried to look menacing, but he was fairly sure he just came off as mildly irritated. Which was - not intimidating in the slightest, at least not if the amused look in Izzy’s eyes was anything to go by. 

“This is all your fault,” he grumped, standing. Izzy followed the suit, careful to grab her book as they began to head out of the mess. “I’m supposed to have the appearance of someone who is appropriately aloof and cranky and uncaring, and you’re ruining my predisposition to all those things. My reputation will be in ruins.”

“I think it’s a good start,” Izzy replied brightly. She paused for a moment, then stood on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Crankiness notwithstanding.”

Gold didn’t say anything. His mind was still processing the whole unexpected ‘kissing’ part of her commentary, but it was distantly aware of the rather silly but no less pleased grin that he was now having a great deal of difficulty getting rid of.

People were _watching,_ for fuck’s sake. 

Izzy really _was_ doing a number on his reputation, and he could not for the life of him he decide if that was a good or a bad thing.


	25. Chapter 25

“This will never work if you don’t relax.”

“I am relaxed.”

“The _hell.”_

“I’m _trying,_ all right?” Emma stabbed a finger at her soon-to-be drift partner, eying her warily. “Anyhow, I don’t think you have room to judge. Shouldn’t _you_ be the anstier one out of the two of us? It’s been awhile since you’ve done this and all.”

“Yes, well. At least I’ve _done_ it,” Regina replied coolly. Beneath the veil of calculated weight, her voice carried the unmistakable tremor that came from someone who was barely succeeding in keeping a lid on her anger. “If I have to take you under my wing and walk you through the whole process, so be it.”

“I can hold my own,” retorted Emma defensively. “I don’t need you kicking me a line.”

Regina smirked in such a way that suggested she would very much like to roll her eyes in contempt. She didn’t, but the message of exasperated disdain crept across to her possible new co-pilot just the same.

Emma had never done any of this before, and for all her projected self-assurance, her confidence was flagging horribly. She’d liked the look of the jaeger, and even enjoyed the ring of the grand-sounding name - _Cygnus Royal,_ all proud and stately. The whole thing had been under construction for _years_ due to extenuating circumstances - a lack of resources and, however ridiculous it sounded, freaking _budget cuts._ But despite all those setbacks and lengthy years trying to get the damn thing put together, it looked magnificent in the docking bay: towering, bold frame and powerfully built limbs contrasting beautifully with the sleek, muted elegance of its thorax and head. 

But then, it had been one thing to admire the jaeger from the outside. It had been another entirely to actually _step in,_ clad in a drivesuit matching the pale gray and dark blue color scheme, the scarlet crest of the thorny crown stamped onto its shoulders. And yet here Emma was, strapping herself into the locking systems next to the _freaking Marshal,_ cursing under her breath as her fingers fumbled with the bulky mechanical catches. She could be at least grateful that Regina took the right hemisphere, perhaps out of habit, though Emma didn’t want to hazard a guess. Running point in an environment she’d given herself no time to attune herself to did _not_ sound pleasant.

This was cutting it _very_ close, Emma knew, with the next surge of Breach activity predicted to occur in less than forty-nine hours. Everyone in the Shatterdome was running on a toxic mixture of caffeine, adrenaline, and slow-burning fear, including the unlucky, fatigued mission control officers who were about to run Emma’s first drift test. If this didn’t work, they’d be fucked, well and truly. Although, frankly, Emma figured they were fucked either way, but if the test fell through and the two simply weren’t compatible, they’d be a little _more_ fucked than they would in the most ideal version of events.

The most ideal version of events would be that Emma’s judgment was correct about she and Regina being drift compatible.

Worst case scenario, one or both of them would be pried out of the Conn-Pod to live the rest of their very short lives as vegetables.

“Just hope this works,” Emma muttered, unease breaking the last word almost unintelligibly. “I kinda wanna be conscious in my last moments, you know. Going down fighting and all.”

Regina shot her an odd look but said nothing.

 _“All right, Cygnus.”_ Leroy’s voice rasped with exhaustion but it was steady as ever. _“We’re going to give you five, then run the neural interface protocol. Ready?”_

“Confirm,” Regina answered shortly before Emma could say anything. “We’ll be waiting for it.”

Emma glared. She didn’t need five minutes to stew in her own hopeless indecision and self-doubt. 

Regina either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Which was, really, just a _splendid_ way to start off a possible new brain-to-brain partnership. The Marshal radiated her usual frosty neutrality and appeared to be silently counting down the seconds when her mind would join with Emma’s.

...whose mind scrambled to do the same, except - _shit_ \- she hadn’t thought to _count,_ so now she was lost and would be taken _completely_ by surprise if anything - 

_“All right, we’re set up here.”_

The sound of Leroy’s voice - of course they would do one last confirmation before submerging the pilots in an immersive mental link, they were military sorts and so were all about last-checks and protocols and things - prompted a low hiss of relief from between Emma’s too-tight clenched teeth. If Regina could hear or see the signs of her co-pilot’s nervousness, she did nothing to show it.

“Anytime, then,” Regina replied, impatience whip-cracking in the two words. Only then did Emma notice the rigidity of her jaw, how she stared unblinkingly ahead, and understood that the Marshal was just as gut-wrenchingly anxious as her potential co-pilot. She simply did a better job at hiding it.

That thought should not have been as calming as it was.

 _“Initiate neural handshake in fifteen...fourteen…”_ The chief LOCCENT officer counted down steadily.

Emma’s stomach knotted itself furiously.

Regina let out a tiny, huffing breath.

They waited, apprehension and sickening dread mounting exponentially -

_“...neural handshake initiated.”_

For an awful instant, Emma could only flounder blindly as some unseen neurological _force_ dragged at the corners of her mind. She had no way of fighting back, no purchase to hold onto herself, overridden by crushing helplessness. There was no resisting it.

The panic had Emma for another heart-dropping second as she considered, however fleetingly, that she might lose her sense of self.

Which terrified her.

Then she dropped into the drift and got her bearings. Her alarm slowed as she registered her mind’s new surroundings. Regina’s mind bled seamlessly into hers, urging her along. She had tread this path before and was only waiting for Emma to do - something. _Step_ somewhere. 

Emma acted on instinct, lowered her mental barriers, and entered. 

_Brainthoughtimpulse_ all swirled together in incomprehensible eddies for a second, then hardened into something recognizable. Thought. No, wait - memory. Strings of memory, chains of the stuff. _Regina’s_ memories, accessible with an easy familiarity that Emma couldn’t even apply to herself outside of this new, weird-ass state.

 _\- she was in San Francisco when the first attack hit, visiting family to tell them she’d been accepted into Harvard, can you believe it? Home after home tossed her out eventually, the longest she ever stayed being six months Streets awash with confused masses, and she drove, just drove, got as far away as she Fifteen and still unwanted, then eighteen and full of fire, sure I’ll join your stupid program She met Daniel in the program, they clicked, immediately compatible in every way Neal was cocky grace, an easy grin, and a scowling father who didn’t seem to like her Unstoppable unbeatable in a jaeger until one kaiju got lucky and hit them in_ just the right way _Years chasing work shifts along the wall of life bitterangryhurtscared Mother wanted her to grow up to be Marshal after her well fine then nothing left to hold her back are you proud mother are you proud of me now are you proud of me now that I’ve done all you asked_

And then they were _in,_ really and truly, and Emma had to catch her breath with the strangeness of it all. She and Regina were completely, inexorably linked and could browse each other’s unabridged life stories effortlessly, but as it was Emma could only briefly skim over the blue-black ripples of - of _Regina,_ she supposed. As she thought it, the Marshal’s undiluted consciousness began to pour itself back into Emma’s and rifle along her mindscape.

Emma got little flutters of flashbacks to her own life interspersed with Regina’s as their heads began to explore and familiarize themselves with each other. She imagined Regina was receiving the same. Emma got a handful scattered, smeared impressions - a man down on one knee, a pale, skeletal body stretched out on an unnervingly white hospital bed, swirls of fog rolling back from streets that were awash with confusion, the scowl of an older, disapproving woman - before it all snapped into place.

The two merged in the middle, then -

_\- then -_

_“Neural handshake strong and holding,”_ Leroy announced, pleased. _“Looking good, Cygnus.”_

For a few moments, Regina walked Emma through the process of moving in tandem, accounting for the heaviness and weight of the bigger machine they were both manipulating. Emma received a distinct, pleased signal from the brain she was sharing a space with as she began catch on. 

Regina was _happy_ with her. 

It was a new, unique sensation, but not wholly unwelcome. Emma could get used to that, she decided as she obediently moved Cygnus’ arms into place, clenched fist to palm to salute the LOCCENT center, as she assumed was standard procedure. It felt odd, okay, sure, but not entirely. The presence of another person doubtless helped with the situation, what with Regina grounding both herself and her newest co-pilot.

_“All right, Cyngus. Next - ”_

They began to move into position and then - 

\- then Regina’s mind erupted.

“Woah, woah!”

Emma could vocalize? Emma could vocalize. 

All right then. 

Moving on.

There wasn’t any time to focus on anything else - Emma was having enough trouble keeping herself anchored in her own head, let alone in the combined mishmash of hers and her other pilot’s. Regina’s memories were careening wildly through their own archives, then sluiced effortlessly into some moment in her past, dove - 

_\- “Mortars, mortars, come on!” Daniel bellowed. But they were out, they were_ out, _they were out and there was no backup coming. All they had were fists and deteriorating metal and they already knew that even if they made it out Specter Havoc never would -_

“Regina! Regina, come on, stay with me!” Emma urged between gasps. Fuck, this was _bizarre._ She was present, here in herself, but if she stopped concentrating her vision would waver and she could make out the mist of hyperventilating breaths forming on a visor that _wasn’t actually hers._

_Shit._

Drifting was supposed to be about sharing _minds._ In no way had Emma ever heard it was supposed to concern sharing _bodies._

This was _not supposed to happen._

Fuck.

_\- “Push back, back!” Daniel roared, and there was blood running down one side of his face and they gave their foe one final wallop with a wobbly tesla fist, but Regina was tired, so tired, and she couldn’t -_

_“Hey, come on,” her co-pilot urged. “Stay with me, come on.”_

_“I can’t,” she whispered, and another wave of misery crashed over the heaviness of their combined consciousnesses as the kaiju recovered from their final, desperate blow with barely a shake of its huge, scaly head._

_“The ring, Regina. Remember the ring.”_

_The ring was a promise. When this was all over -_

_She tried, she tried, she tried she tried she_ tried - 

“Stay with me!” 

No, no, _fuck_ no, Emma could see the whites of Regina’s eyes. And then there was the eerie, unpleasant side effect where she could actually feel the echoes of the other woman’s grief, as biting and freezing as if Emma herself had suffered it.

 _“Right hemisphere is chasing the R.A.B.I.T., repeat - ”_ Leroy rattled off orders, but Emma was no longer listening. She ignored the unbearable surreality of the entire thing, now forced to devote every scrap of her energy to remembering how to reel Regina back in from her painful past. She’d learned about this. She knew about this. She’d read about this. Come on, come _on,_ she _knew_ this.

Emma steered her focus into her own neural vault of memories. Printed words on paper flickered in front of her vision, recollections of a crisp textbook - 

\- this was taking too long -

_Umm. Right. Latching onto memories, specifically traumatic ones. Bad, bad. Very bad. Pull them out immediately._

Wait, no, that was LOCCENT’s job. Except LOCCENT wasn’t doing anything but shouting into her comm and making it _very hard to concentrate_. Okay, so Plan B.

There wasn’t a Plan B.

Yes there was. There was going to be a Plan B. She was making a Plan B. That was what she was doing.

_\- Specter was falling apart at the seams but they smashed into the coastline, alive, alive, mercifully alive, and Regina tumbled out with her heart hammering in her ribs. She’d had to pilot them solo but she could still feel Daniel’s fragile brainwaves, unconscious but alive, alive!_

_She pulled Daniel from the wreckage, relieved to hear the beat of his pulse in her head -_

_\- no, no, but it was too fragile, too soft -_

_\- she hadn’t expected to see quite so much blood, only not all of it was hers -_

_\- his systems were overloaded, he was going into cardiac arrest -_

_\- he couldn’t be -_

_\- his thoughts were barely coherent, all sputters and gasps and_ “sorry”s - 

_\- he was losing too much blood too much it was too much no this couldn’t be hap -_

_Focus, Emma,_ she told herself sternly. Reliving Regina’s past traumas wouldn’t help either of them now. LOCCENT wasn’t doing it’s fucking _job,_ which meant it was up to fucking _her_ and oh god she could not do this.

Yes she could.

No she couldn’t.

There was nothing in any of the textbooks or documentation about what to do when your right hemisphere goes _fucking haywire_ and LOCCENT mission control won’t do a goddamned thing about it.

So. All right then. Options trimmed out, Regina having some kind of fucking breakdown, and there was one final course of action Emma could think of to do and that happened to be the _one thing_ she was actually _good_ at. It also happened to be something that she had _no fucking clue_ over whether it would work. She had just started drifting for the first time in her _life_ and had only just now _barely_ gotten the logistics worked out, for fuck’s sake. But Regina was shaking in the lock systems, eyes staring dead forward, and the sight was so indescribably disconcerting that Emma made up her mind right then and fucking there.

Yup, okay. This was Plan B. All right. Fantastic.

So she took a deep breath, immersed herself fully back into Regina’s memories, and did that glorified _one thing_ she had left:

Improvise.

_\- he couldn’t be no no no no NO NO -_

_“All right, cut it out,” Emma said sharply._

_Step one, at the very least, had worked. The co-pilot was on the beach beside them, watching the scene play out. Yes, it was very sad and appropriately horrible and her stomach turned a bit from the sprayed contrast of crimson on pale sand, but right now Emma was a little more preoccupied with getting Regina OUT of the unhappy memory than admiring said memory’s aesthetic._

_Unfortunately, Regina wasn’t listening. She clung to Daniel, clutching his shattered body tightly to hers, rocking back and forth as she willed him to get up, twitch a finger, move, just_ move - 

_“Fucking_ look _at me,” Emma hissed._

_Regina obeyed automatically, registering the other woman’s presence for the first time._

_Emma had managed to startle her out of her distress by sheer virtue of_ mood whiplash. 

_She couldn’t tell for the life of her if that was impressive or just really fucking stupid._

_And that wasn’t even the most unsettling thing about this entire...yeah._ Situation. _Regina wasn’t simply re-enacting her own memories; she looked to be_ physically _in that mindset. Her tear-streaked face was younger, more open, and so desperately, achingly broken. She rubbed one hand - a hand looked disturbingly like it was gloved in scarlet - beneath one eye and gestured, face breaking, at Daniel’s still form._

“Please,” _she whispered wretchedly._

_“Nope,” said Emma._

_The other woman stared. Some part of the Marshal was jerking at the discord between what had actually happened and what was happening now. Emma pressed forward, reassured that her plan had worked. A distant, sectioned-off portion of Regina’s mind had begun to understand this wasn’t real and was initiating the actions to protect herself from it._

_It wouldn’t be enough. Not yet, anyway. Emma braved onward._

_“You’re over it,” she told Regina’s mind-self shortly. “I’m from years in your future and I can tell you right now. You’re over it. Or, er, you’ll get there. ‘S no big.”_

_Regina’s chin trembled._

_The back of her consciousness was stirring back to life, awakening, but oh-so-painfully slowly._

_Heartless words, but hey, they were working. The down-to-earth approach was having its intended effect on the Regina of the present, and that was all Emma really cared about. She knelt in front of the mental recollection of Regina’s past self, ignored the umpteenth realization that this was_ so fucking weird, _and tried one last time:_

 _“Wake_ up.”

Regina tore herself back into now. The Marshal took one look at her fragmented mindscape and reasserted her control over the whole thing. The jaeger, the drift, their heads all snapped back into place with her familiar, crisp exasperation.

The Marshal was _seething._

Emma could have cried with relief. 

(She didn’t, but oh _god_ she didn’t think she would ever be so happy to see Regina in her life.)

 _“Disconnecting! Disconnecting both pilots,”_ Leroy prattled, plainly terrified out of his mind.

The drift faded, their minds slid back into their proper places, and they were back in their own heads. Emma’s memories and thoughts were once again her own. She let out a long, shuddering breath, barely able to hold herself upright in the Conn-Pod locking systems. Regina herself hung slack in them, though she was clearly making valiant effort to stand.

The pilots stared deliberately _not_ at each other as they collected themselves.

Leroy said something about docking, reporting, exit procedure, blah blah blah, Emma had the fucking _Marshal_ with her, she’d explain anything they missed. 

Finally, Emma looked at said Marshal. Caught her breath for a minute. 

Then spoke.

“You,” she said weakly. “Better not _ever._ Do that again.”

Regina glowered.


	26. Chapter 26

Regina shooed Dr. Whale away for what felt like the hundredth time, scowling.

“I,” she hissed at him. “am _fine._ My neurons are fine. My nerve synapses are _fine._ I am not going into _shock._ Just _give me a minute.”_

The doctor obligingly scooted away before he’d even touched her, hands outstretched in a clear and placating _please don’t hurt me_ gesture. Regina snorted and began to rub at the bridge of her eyebrows in a futile attempt to quell a rapidly forming headache.

Emma watched, arms crossed, eyebrows raised, leaning against the opposite wall of the research department.

“He’s just trying to help, you know.”

 _“Yes,”_ Regina snapped. “So I gathered. That is _great._ Except that I am _fine.”_

“That’s not what I saw,” Emma said warily.

As if she _needed_ the reminder that _Emma Swan_ had been there, poking and prodding all over her most private thoughts, memories, emotions - sure. True. Yes. Emma had seen it all, so there was no point in skirting the subject. 

Regina had known what she’d been signing up for. She was the only one out of the two of them who had actually _done_ it, for god’s sake, so she’d assumed she could keep a handle on her memories. Only apparently the answer to that unvoiced query was _no, no she really could not_ and she should have predicted this or at the _very_ least _prepared_ for it because the last time she had drifted, the _last_ time - 

No.

No, she was not going there. Reliving that particular memory in vivid technicolor detail had been _quite_ enough for her.

“Oh, but of _course,”_ Regina snarled, soaking every word with as much biting acrimony as she could. “You’re in my head for less than thirty minutes and you suddenly understand _everything_ about me.”

“I understood enough.” Emma was still looking at Regina as if she might break any second. Regina’s nails dug a little into her fists. She _loathed_ the ache of sympathy in the other woman’s voice.

They’d seen the insides of each other’s heads, laid open, bare, raw. Surely she could _understand,_ then, that Regina wasn’t _helpless._

“Of course you did,” said the Marshal, rough with disgust.

Emma surged reflexively up from her leaning position, arms unfolding. She looked about ready to tear Regina a new one until she seemed to be forcing herself to freeze. Her hands clenched and unclenched rapidly for a moment, then she heaved out an unbelievably indiscreet breath and leaned back against the wall.

Their drift had been short enough that only the mildest of traces from her emotional reaction to those words carried over into Regina’s consciousness. They weren’t ghosting nearly as hard as they should be, a fact for which Regina was eternally grateful. Not three hours ago, she’d had the other woman more or less rooting around her _skull._ She really didn’t think she could handle Emma having a backstage pass to whatever thoughts were running rampant in her head _now_ as well.

Still, if nothing else, Regina should at least have anticipated the possibility of a chased R.A.B.I.T. on her end. She’d accounted for something similar occurring in relation to _Emma,_ of course, but foolishly hadn’t applied the same reasoning to herself. Regina had assumed she could handle herself and was frankly embarrassed that it was the inexperienced rookie who’d had to clumsily pull her out of her own personal loop of memory-archived trauma. The entire experience had left Regina feeling horribly exposed and inexplicably _violated._ In pulling her out of the memory, Emma had tapped into something deeply personal. It was one thing to lay those sorts of things out as a mutually-agreed memory open house, but another thing _entirely_ for one to deliberately _invade_ those thoughts and _then_ have the breathtaking audacity to _insert themselves into them._

“Oh, for _god’s sake.”_ Regina became very aware of the fact that Emma was glaring at her again, knuckles white from their grip on her own folded arms. “I was trying to _help.”_

“I didn’t - ” The Marshal’s eyes narrowed. “Are you listening in on me right now?”

“I don’t _need_ to,” Emma said weakly, looking away uncomfortably. “You’re practically screaming it at me. We’re _ghosting,_ remember?”

“Well, I - ” Regina stopped, thinking delicately about what she wanted to say next. “I am _grateful_ that you tried to help,” she began slowly. “But that doesn’t change the fact that our drift attempt was….well.”

Emma pushed herself away from the wall and sat beside Regina, sighing. _“Oh_ yeah.” 

Regina fell silent, thankful that she didn’t need to explain further. Ghost drift or no ghost drift, it seemed Emma had picked up on her meaning just fine.

“I’m just grateful, though, you know?” Emma said finally. She stared at the wall she’d just been leaning against distantly. “I mean, we got out okay, we’re both alive, no permanent brain damage on the books.”

“Permanent - ” Regina spluttered. “What?”

The other woman looked at her, frowning. “Isn’t that, you know? A risk?”

“Um.” Regina was certain she was doing a _terrible_ job at choking back a laugh. “No.”

“What?” There was a new expression dawning on Emma’s face, and it was shaping up to look along the lines of _murderous._

“I don’t remember them teaching us that at Academy.” The Marshal fought to keep her voice as neutral as possible, wondering all the while from where Emma could have gleaned such _hopelessly_ inaccurate information. “Who told you _that?”_

“That’s what Gold said!” she countered, lifting her shoulders defensively. “Don’t bad drifts have a risk of, um, brain damage?”

“Maybe in the earlier Mark I models,” Regina answered dubiously. She had to bite her lower lip to keep from collapsing into a highly undignified bout of snickering. “Now a bad drift could result in significant mental scarring, _maybe._ It used to be you could run a risk of aneurysm from solo-piloting, but today you don’t really have a chance of, uh - ” A tiny hiccup of mirth escaped her and Emma glared. “ - erm, _brain damage_ from a _test run.”_

“Damnit, Gold,” Emma swore furiously, fuming. “I’m gonna _kill_ him.”

“That’s what he told you?” When the other woman nodded glumly, the Marshal inhaled sharply to suppress the urge to _cackle._ “That sounds like him. Probably to keep you two from drifting?”

 _“Yeah.”_ Emma’s tone carried the tired weight of someone who now knew they’d been played and were now realizing they _really_ should have thought better.

“And you _believed_ him?”

“Hey, shut up!” She shot Regina yet another black look. “Could’ve happened to anyone!”

“Maybe someone who didn’t used to _date his son._ How well did you know the family again?”

“All right, _fine,_ so I should’ve known better!”

Regina couldn’t help the short bark of laughter. 

“Are you _done?”_ demanded Emma testily when Regina grabbed the wall to keep herself from doubling over.

“Yes, I think so.” The tension and stress that had built up from the faulty drift was rolling off her shoulders and suddenly it wasn’t as difficult to breathe and think clearly. However involuntary, the humor had done Regina good. The corners of her mouth were still twitching when she glanced back Emma’s way. “Sorry.”

The other woman’s face softened as she partially shrugged.

“Well, hey. At least now I have confirmation that you have an entire emotional range, right?”

The amusement faded. Emma seemed to realize what she’d said had been slightly - well, callous, and her back stiffened.

“I have been, admittedly, very - closed off,” Regina began semi-apologetically. 

“Which is totally understandable!” Oh, her wild attempts at backpedaling were _majestic._ “I mean, you’re the Marshal. That means, you know. Um. Decisions. And things.”

“Things?”

“You know.” Emma waved her hand in a vague, circling motion. “Big...uh, command-y things.”

“Don’t get technical on me, Swan.”

“Oh, _shut up._ You want technical, go find Whale.”

“I think we should try again.”

Emma was silent for a solid ten seconds as she stared. She managed to recover masterfully once the initial shock faded.

“Sorry, when did we change the subject?”

“Just now,” Regina said smoothly. She stood and started toward the research department exit. Emma hurried anxiously behind her. “I think we need to try drifting again.”

“Wait, okay, hold up. _How_ is that in any way a good idea?”

“I’ll admit we have both been - _off_ with one another.” Well, damn, it seemed Regina’s normally sharp verbal functions had shorted. Or maybe that was just a byproduct Emma’s _technical jargon._ “We’ve spent this entire time arguing, walling ourselves away, and generally avoiding one another. We’ve yet to actually put any time into building a rapport as all good jaeger pilots should.”

 _“All_ good jaeger pilots?”

“The best ones always do.”

“Well, that rules us right out, which is kind of a relief.”

_“Emma.”_

The other woman raised her hands in a defensive _I give up_ gesture. “All right, fine. We’ve got less than, what? Forty-five hours until the next predicted event? But okay. Sure. Give LOCCENT the go-ahead and we can relive that oh- _so_ -pleasurable experience.”

“What makes you think we have the _slightest_ choice in the matter?” Regina snapped. “Less than two days before the next event and that predicted Category V emergence is _overdue._ What do you suppose that means?”

“I, uh.” Emma swallowed hard. “I don’t know.”

“Neither do I. But I can’t imagine it will be very good. That being said, we need to be ready when that event comes. _All_ of us.”

Emma looked intensely uneasy at the prospect.

“Okay, but, uh. How?” she asked, shrugging helplessly. “I mean, no offense, but I’m kinda not desperate to go through that whole, uh - _thing_ again.”

And the worst part of it was that Emma had a _point._ There was no guarantee that one or _both_ of them wouldn’t go chasing the R.A.B.I.T. the second time around. It would probably be even more likely to happen now, come to think of it.

And yet, and yet. 

“We don’t have any choice.”

“Well, I mean, we’re not gonna, um.” Regina turned and Emma raised her eyebrows, looking at her like she was talking about the most obvious thing in the world. “Talk about it?”

“What’s there to talk about? Why would we need to? What would even be the _point?”_ Regina could feel her defenses roaring up, steely apathy crashing into place. 

“You, because you need it, so it doesn’t happen again,” Emma reeled off in quick succession, ticking the count off on her fingers. 

“You’ve already been in my _head._ There’s no need.”

“Really?” Emma demanded skeptically. “You willing to risk that?” When Regina didn’t answer, Emma heaved her shoulders in an exaggerated sigh. “I don’t know about you, but all I got was little, um, impressions. Flashes, you know? Might be more helpful to _talk_ about it is all I’m saying.”

Regina vacillated. Other than the nightmares that were beyond her control, she hadn’t willingly stirred up those memories - a long time. A long damn time. Not without good reason, naturally - even scattered fragments of her history tended to impede her judgment and make it more difficult to perform her duties as Marshal. But the key to a successful drift was, as the experts always liked to emphasize, _trust._ And trust entailed all sorts of things Regina wasn’t really ready to address, like lengthy discussions about her past and an absolute _mess_ of unresolved personal issues.

Even if she didn’t want to think about any of it, much less discuss it with _Emma Swan,_ of all people, the reasonable part of Regina reminded her that if they were to have any chance of _not_ completely screwing up the drift, the barriers would need to come down and they would need to have a discussion.

“You _know_ what happened,” Regina finally shot back. “You were in my _head._ You want me to give you a blow-by-blow analysis?”

“I saw some. Not all.” 

_Hell._ Emma was just as uncompromising as the woman she was trying to talk to, which paradoxically explained both their inability to cooperate _and_ their drift compatibility. 

There would be no loopholes here. Regina pinched at the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, a motion that was quickly becoming something of a coping mechanism in response to Emma’s insistent prodding.

“Fine. What else do you want to know?” It was a veritable _battle_ to keep her voice steady.

“Who was he to you? What was up with the ring? The stuff about the hospital? And what’s the deal with your _mom?”_

Regina put up a hand to stop the flow of questions. Those four carried quite enough weight on their own. Emma closed her mouth, but her face was still tight and determined. She wasn’t leaving without her answers.

The Marshal sucked in a deep, cleansing breath.

“Daniel was my co-pilot,” she began.

“Gee, I’d never have figured.”

“Are you going to let me finish?” The stare Regina pinned Emma with was icy and furious. The other woman subsided guiltily.

“Sorry.”

“We met in the Academy, hit it off immediately. We graduated, got our own jaeger in just under three years.”

“Specter Havoc.” Emma nodded. “I remember hearing that bit. You guys were heroes.”

“Briefly.” Regina’s throat was tightening but she forced herself to continue. “Active five years, six-kaiju kill count. Impressive at the time, I remember. We had press, praise, attention, everything. Four years into our partnership, Daniel proposed.”

Emma’s expression became sympathetic, but not surprised. She’d gathered as much, Regina supposed. So she could be observant after all, considering she put her mind to it.

 _“Hey,”_ Emma interrupted sharply. “I can still _hear_ you.”

Regina rolled her eyes.

 _“Any_ way,” she went on. “That was the whole point of the ring. We made each other promise that once the war was over, we’d go through with it.”

“That, uh. You guys knew that could have been a _while,_ right?”

“We didn’t think so at the time. The PPDC was in its prime and the Jaeger Program was at its most effective. The first jaeger to fall in battle was Spindle Gauntlet, and that’s when everything changed. Less than a year later, Specter got brought down just the same. Suddenly the program wasn’t humanity’s best chance anymore.”

She waited for Emma to make some inane or utterly obvious statement, but she was quiet. Her breathing was fast and shallow - she was _nervous._

Sensing no risk of interruptions, Regina continued.

“April of 2016, Panama. Codename Fukkatsu. Both pilots went in, both pilots came out.”

“But - ”

“Both pilots came out,” Regina kept going with a controlled steeliness, the tremor in her voice barely perceptible. “But one was badly injured, going into cardiac arrest. First responders pulled him out, but it, ah. It wasn’t looking optimistic.”

Silence.

Muffling, overwhelming, prevailing silence.

Then - 

“Two days.”

“What?” Emma’s voice was hushed.

“Two days.” The Marshal met her eyes, barely. Her vision was starting to blur at the edges and she brushed impatiently at the moisture threatening to spill there. “That’s how long he was in the hospital. In and out of intensive care, all the while in critical condition. They did everything for him. _I_ did everything for him, kept ghosting for as long as I could to give him strength, encouragement. In the end, it.”

Her throat closed. She didn’t need to finish. A tendril Emma’s thoughts brushed tentatively against hers, and she could sense sympathy there. She accepted it gratefully.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Emma.

“You know the rest.” She didn’t want to dwell or linger or bond or _whatever._ Emma wanted the full story and she was getting her full story and that was _it_. “My mother always wanted me to take over her position as Marshal, and once Daniel was - well, there wasn’t anything holding me back anymore, was there?”

“But it’s not what _you_ wanted.”

“Since when has that mattered?” Regina let out a tiny, mildly irritated huff. “I didn’t want to be drift compatible with _you,_ but that hardly made a difference, did it?”

Emma looked as if she didn’t know whether to be amused or offended. The resulting facial expression was a highly entertaining mix of both.

“Still, I mean.” Emma’s eyes dropped to the floor. “I, uh. I’m sorry. That’s really, um. Wow.”

Regina folded her arms and shrugged.

“Well, there you go. The unabridged tale,” she said with faint disgust.

“Yeah, but I mean, now that I _know,_ we’ve got a way to stop it, right?” Her thoughts practically screamed blustering confidence; she was grabbing at straws and they both knew it. “So we’re more prepared the second time around?”

“Oh, so now you’re behind the idea of another drift?”

Regina wished it were as simple as knowing what the problem was, but drifting didn’t work like that. Memories were unpredictable, volatile things. Perhaps, the Marshal considered, it was a blessing that Swan was just as much, if not more so. She worked in a uniquely unconventional manner, and while that impeded how well their temperaments gelled, it also served to their advantage. Even if it was only for the short-term, her turbulent neural structure could be their most effective safeguard against an incoming R.A.B.I.T.

Emma lifted her shoulders in a massive, tired shrug. “It’s not like we have a choice, right? There’s the whole triplet event thing and we’re kind of essential for that, right? We might as well make sure we stand a chance when it happens.”

“Triple.”

“What?”

“It would be a _triple_ event.”

“Whatever.”

Regina suppressed a smirk. The whole discussion they’d just had wasn’t an experience she was eager to dwell on and, to her intense relief, Emma was finally putting her ghost-drift to good use by interpreting that thought without verbally acknowledging it. She was deliberately redirecting the conversation to her more typical, lighter subject matter.

The lighter subject matter being, in this case, the end of the world.

Morbidly, Regina felt this was preferable to the alternative.

“You want to tell LOCCENT, or should I?” the Marshal asked dryly. She could already picture the horror on Leroy’s face. 

“If it comes from you, they’ll listen.”

Regina smirked, now able to put the seriousness of the recent conversation aside. “I do have that effect on people.”

She received a glow of satisfaction from Emma’s side of the ghost link. Her conviction might not be ironclad, but Regina found its presence reassuring all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're coming up on the end of chapters I've actually written and just needed to edit. I know I've got storyboards somewhere but honestly it's been two years since I first started this monster and I have no idea where it's going to end. The next few chapters might take a while to come your way.


	27. Chapter 27

Ruby didn’t like feeling left out of the loop.

Which, unfortunately, was _all_ she’d been feeling for the past few days. The entire Shatterdome was practically vibrating with high-strung nervous energy, everyone tensed for the red flashing lights and warning alarms that would signal defense protocol in the case of the next event. Everyone was tense, overworked, and nigh insomniac at this point, and _no one was telling Ruby anything._

“Wasn’t intentional on anyone’s part, I’m sure,” Graham tried reassuring her as she paced in the mess, food untouched. “We’re all a little stressed.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just sick of not knowing what’s going on,” she said in anxious undertone, folding her arms. “The Marshal hasn’t been dropping directives at _all._ Like, there’s this total radio silence from her end and no one is telling us why.”

“Maybe she’s busy with the whole anticipated event thing. I wouldn’t get concerned over it,” Graham offered.

“Wouldn’t get _concerned?_ I’m _already_ concerned! Aren’t you?” She rounded on her co-pilot. He raised his hands defensively, palms out.

“Woah, hey, I’m on your side.”

“Right, right. I’m sorry. I’m just.” She half-shrugged, unable to articulate how much she hated the awful, unendingly frustrating feeling of _helplessness._

“I know.”

Yeah, he would. He’d been in her head, he knew how much she detested the feeling of being trapped. And right now that was _all_ she felt. Ruby was intensely skittish, jumpy, like she couldn’t think straight and she just needed to _move -_

\- and then the alarms went off and blue lights began flashing in the docking bay.

“Drift test?” Ruby asked blankly. “Who…?”

She and Graham didn’t hesitate. They tore into the docking bay out of reflex, but then Ruby veered sharply upstairs, heading for LOCCENT mission control instead.

“Ruby, what - ” It took her co-pilot a half-second to realize she wasn’t still behind him.

“Better view!” she called over her shoulder.

Mission control was a mess. A shouting, caffeine-fueled, bustling mess. Leroy was speaking urgently into one of the comms but Ruby couldn’t hear over the chaos that riddled the station. She and Graham shouldered their way through the LOCCENT officers until they were at his side.

“We got word of a drift test?” Ruby demanded as soon as Leroy was within earshot.

“Yeah, hang on, Royal, you’re almost - ” His hand snapped over the comm as he glanced back at the two pilots. “What?”

_“Drift test?”_

Leroy blinked. “Yeah,” he replied, drawing out the syllable as if it were painfully obvious.

Ruby opened a palm in furious supination, spinning it in a loose, sloppy circle that demanded he elaborate. “For _who?”_

“The Marshal and the Swan recruit.”

“Um.” It was Ruby’s turn to look puzzled. “What?”

“First test was a bit of a hit-and-miss but the Marshal insisted, so - ”

“Wait, hold on,” Graham intervened. _“First_ test?”

“Well, yeah, see the first test was, ah - well, it was a bit of a failure and - ”

 _“What do you mean by first test?”_ Graham’s normally level voice was beginning to reach an alarming volume.

“A _bit_ of a failure?” said Ruby at the same moment, outraged.

Leroy was adamant. “The Marshal was very clear - ”

“The first one didn’t work and _you’re running it again?”_

“Um. Yes?”

Ruby put her head in her hands.

“Look, she gave us an order!”

 _“LOCCENT mission control, please respond,”_ the Marshal’s voice, made tinny by the static-laced comms, sounded impatient. _“We’re ready to initiate anytime you are.”_

“Right! Right.” Leroy quickly removed his hand from the comm, fingers flying back to keyboard. “We’ll be initiating neural handshake in thirty seconds. Try to relax.”

 _“I know how the neural handshake works, LOCCENT.”two,”_ Ruby mouthed to her co-pilot, eyebrows raised. Graham lifted one shoulder but said nothing. “No one _told_ us about any of this.”

“We’re telling you _now,”_ Leroy said grumpily. “Not that it’s _strictly_ any of your business. Lining up nicely, Royal! Both hemispheres aligned and calibrated.” The latter statements were directed into the comm. The shifting plated metal of the massive machine outside LOCCENT’s window responded with smooth precision.

“You’re kidding me?” Ruby arched an eyebrow. “If we’re going to be running point with a rookie and the _Marshal,_ don’t you think it would be helpful if we _knew that?”_

“Who says you’re running point?” Leroy demanded sharply.

“Omega’s Mark V,” she said slowly, hoping the LOCCENT officer could detect the obviousness of his question. “The only one. It’s the logical choice.”

“It’s the _Marshal’s_ choice.”

“Come on. You really think she’ll be running point in an old Mark III while drifting with a _rookie?_ It’s bad enough that they’re cutting this so close - the two of them together, in the same machine? That’s a freaking _time bomb.”_

“Well, the _time bomb_ has both hemispheres calibrated and seems to be drifting pretty well, so I don’t know what to tell you,” Leroy snapped. “Everything’s already going much smoother than before.”

“I _still_ can’t believe no one _told_ us.” Ruby couldn’t help but feel a bit betrayed over the whole damn thing. “This sort of thing is _important.”_

“And if we were certain it was going to _work,_ then we would have!” Now Leroy just sounded exasperated, doubtless by trying to maintain two conversations at once. 

Graham gave Ruby’s arm a little tug and a jerk of his chin toward the door. She paused for a moment before going along with the unspoken suggestion. He was right; they’d worn out their welcome here.

“I don’t _believe_ this,” she hissed again, fuming, as soon as they were out of LOCCENT’s earshot. “The Marshal and the _rook?_ Can you think of a _worse_ idea?”

“Hopper and Whale,” Graham said immediately.

Ruby stared.

“You asked if I could think of a worse idea.” He shrugged fluidly. He sounded almost mildly apologetic.

She could only blink rapidly for a minute before shoving at him lightly with one shoulder, allowing his levity to warm away her exasperation.

The sound of elevated voices down one of the halls turned both their heads. Ruby listened for a moment before smirking.

“Speak of the devils.”

She and her co-pilot followed the disturbance all the way to the research department.

“How many _times,”_ Whale was saying furiously, punctuating each word with a flailing arm, looking for all the world like he was milking a great invisible cow, “do I need to _tell_ you? _Obviously_ the bomb solution is _not going to work._ We won’t _get_ another chance at this!”

“I _understand_ that.” Hopper was clearly trying to be patient with his colleague and wasn’t having much luck at it. “Were you listening? Were you listening at all?”

Graham quietly snorted and tried to bury it in a cough.

“Boys,” Ruby interrupted coolly. “Is there a problem?”

Whale hissed something between his teeth and retreated to a corner of the lab where he began poking moodily at several - _bits_ of the kaiju that Ruby didn’t think she had words for and frankly didn’t want to find out.

“I think I have a solution.” Hopper ignored the scientist’s evident sulkiness, turning to the jaeger pilots. “To the issue with the bombs. See, every time we’ve tried to lob one into the Breach, it’s just bounced back.”

“Well, yeah,” said Graham. “Ruby and I were there for the last attempt and, yeah, no dice.”

“Well, I have this theory - ”

“ - which is yet to be proved _right,_ by the way,” remarked Whale from his corner, kaiju entrails unable to keep his interest. _“Or_ be proved to be anything other than _rampant speculation.”_

“Yes, okay, that’s true,” said Hopper, persistent, now frowning in open frustration. “But, but just - just hear me out. Hear me out on this.”

Ruby and Graham exchanged looks. Graham tossed her one of his _we-might-as-well_ looks and a tilt of his chin. 

“Okay, so the _kaiju_ can pass through the Breach without any difficulty, right? And _we_ can’t. So that means there’s something about the kaiju that, I don’t know - opens it? Keeps it open? Allows them to pass?”

Whale cleared his throat. Hopper began talking more hurriedly.

“I’m saying that _clearly_ the Breach has some sort of scanning procedure, something we probably can’t even detect. But it only ever allows _organic material_ through. Maybe you need have the kaijus’ specific protein signature or, or you need to be a silicon-based lifeform like they are, or _something.”_

“Something.” One of Ruby’s eyebrows canted upward.

 _“Something,_ yes. But that’s not the point.”

“It’s not?”

“No! No, if, if you’ll just let me - okay, see, we don’t need to _know_ what goes on with the kaiju biologically. We just need to be able to figure a way to mimic their protein signature.”

“That, uh.” Now Graham was frowning too. “Sounds complicated.”

“It’s not, really! We don’t need to _do_ anything for that - if there’s a kaiju close enough to the bomb and, and you can get them both into the breach at the same time, the Throat should let _both_ of them through and the bomb does the rest!”

“Right, well, I’m not a scientist, but that actually sounds - well, it _sounds_ like it could work?” Graham almost worded it as he would a question, half-turning to look at Ruby as he did so. “So where’s the disagreement?”

“Disagreement?” Whale parroted, his voice high and shrill as he mimicked Graham’s soft lilting accent. “Oh, there’s no disagreement. You know, aside from the fact that _everything_ he just said is _purely theoretical,_ there’s no disagreement at all!”

“So there’s no guarantee it would work,” Ruby said slowly.

“Oh, come on!” Hopper’s voice sounded strained. “Whale, you know better than anyone that until we put forth _action,_ all we ever _have_ is theories. Now, I do believe that this is the right thing to do and I believe that we _can_ make it work, but Whale, please - you have to _work_ with me here.”

“It’s not the _idea_ I take issue with! It’s the fact that it’s - it’s just an _idea._ We can’t send them out to close the Breach based on a purely speculative theory and _nothing else.”_

Ruby and Graham began to retreat from the research department as the scientists renewed their fierce debate. 

“You think they have something?” she asked her co-pilot as they returned to traversing the Shatterdome halls.

“I think we should tell the Marshal and see what she thinks of it,” he replied. “Because like it or not, Whale was right about one thing - this is our last chance to finish it, or it really will all be over.”

\--

“You agree with them?”

“I think they’ve got something we can use,” Ruby admitted, rubbing at the back of her neck with one hand a little self-consciously. “Nothing else has worked and that’s really the strongest theory they’ve got.”

Mills pinched at the bridge of her nose and sighed. They’d caught her just as she was exiting the Royal, barely five minutes after running the apparently successful second drift test.

“You’re sure about this?” she asked, finally dropping her hand to look back at them.

“No,” said Graham.

“Nope,” Ruby echoed bluntly.

The Marshal nodded wearily to herself. She seemed to be eighty percent someplace else at the moment, but seeing as she’d just accomplished her second drift test in seven years?

Well, Ruby really couldn’t blame her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter. The rest is completely based on endnotes and storyboards from here on out. Here's to hoping I remember how to write these doofuses.


	28. Chapter 28

“We’re talking about an opening that’ll put all previous Breach activity to _shame._ And if this theory is _correct - ”_

“And if it’s not? Hm? Then we’re back to square one and _completely_ screwed on top of it, because this is our literal last chance here!”

“No, no no no no no no _listen,_ okay, just _listen._ It’s like a barcode scanner, a confirmation of genetic code, and _that’s_ why we’ve never been able to get past it before. But this time - ”

“Are you equating an _interdimensional rift_ to a piece of equipment found at the _supermarket?”_

“Well, how would _you_ categorize it? I’m not calling it a _klein_ bottle, this isn’t the _dark_ ages, we’re not _savages - ”_

“Gentlemen.”

The word sluiced easily through the ensuing argument, and both halves of the Shatterdome’s sparse research department wisely fell silent.

Marshal Mills surveyed the pair of them tiredly, arms folded over her chest. Emma lingered over her shoulder like an ever-present ghost of the thing she didn’t want to acknowledge but nonetheless _had_ to, because like it or not, take two of their drift experiment had been completed successfully, _without a hitch,_ in Swan’s words, and now they were ghosting stronger than ever.

Regina suppressed a sigh. She’d better get used to having Emma Swan in her head. She didn’t find the thought quite as aggravating in practice as it had been in theory.

Emma shifted in place, every line of lingering thought projecting nothing short of a wry, _Gee,_ thanks.

“I hear you have a theory,” said the Marshal.

“Right. Yes. Okay.” Hopper spread his hands wide in an almost beseeching gesture and sucked in a preparatory breath.

Whale rolled his eyes and looked away with a quietly derisive snort, prompting a glower from Emma. 

“Basically, we’re talking about the concomitant base _requirements_ that would come from the idea of an interdimensional rift. We’re already operating under several unnamed premises - namely, that the race or species or whatever you like to call them, those on the other side of the Breach are intelligent, rational organisms.”

“And highly destructive,” said Whale in a bored tone that suggested he’d had to listen to this explanation far too many times in his past.

Regina had to tamp down the mental image of Hopper rehearsing this speech in front of a mirror.

“Well, yes. Obviously.” Hopper didn’t acknowledge or seem to really _mind_ the interruption, to his credit, simply pressing bravely onward. “This might be a reactionary measure on their part based on some perceived notion of our aggression or it might be completely incidental or it might just be their genetic predisposition - none of that _matters.”_ He preempted any interruption with an anticipatory flurry of equivocal hand waves. “We _do_ know that their universe or planet, whatever it is, must be significantly different from our own if we’re making the logical extrapolation from the fact that kaiju are silicon-based, _completely_ different from Earth’s carbon-based life. And we’ve been trying to penetrate this thing for _years_ now.”

“Twenty years.” Whale was now inspecting his fingernails.

“You know, you can make whatever claims you like.” Hopper half-turned to face his colleague. “That the Breach is magnetized, that there’s some kind of internal gravity funnel preventing any of our attempts from succeeding, but the point is that _they’re_ the ones who opened the Breach. _They’re_ the ones that have been sending things through. Therefore, _they’re_ the ones who control it. They’re the ones that get a say what passes through and what doesn’t. So where does that leave us?”

“We have to trick the Breach into thinking we’re kaiju?” said Whale, infinitely uninterested.

“I think I get the idea,” Regina interrupted before the scientists could engage in another trade-off of jargon-laden jabs. “You’re saying that using a kaiju’s carcass will allow any material to pass through. Correct?”

“That’s the long and short of it,” said Hopper with a nod.

“That’s the _theory,”_ said Whale, pointedly, at exactly the same moment.

Emma looked between the pair of them dubiously. Regina had to actively suppress the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, fighting down a weary sigh. No wonder the effort to save the world was utterly doomed. No one in the damn Shatterdome could muster an ounce of cooperation until the situation absolutely required it.

“We’re at the eleventh hour, here,” she said at last, slow and measured. “Are you absolutely certain this will work?”

Hopper and Whale exchanged a glance. Whale finally blew out a long exhale of air, opening a hand.

“It’s all we got, Marshal.”

Regina shut her eyes.

It would have to do.

“Thank you,” she said, then inclined her head in a stiff partial bow. “Gentlemen. It’s been an honor.”

She turned neatly on her heel and left the scientists to stand at her, practically agape.

“Did she just _thank_ us?”

“The Marshal _thanked_ us.”

“Since when does she do that?”

“Hell if I know, Hopper. You can’t tell me _your_ theory’s what did it. You _can’t.”_

“What, are you still having trouble grasping the pith of it?”

“What? No. _No._ The pith is - it’s _grasped,_ okay? Completely grasped over here. That’s not the problem I have with it.”

“Okay, so what, then? The math is solid.”

“You’re _completely_ overlooking what happens when you take _physics_ into account. You can’t index those kinds of values in an deep-sea, airless, gravity-less space! What happens to your f-value then, Hopper? Hm?”

“Sorry, are you trying to inject our very _basic_ understanding of _gravitational physics_ into a discussion about _interdimensional breaches between universes?”_

 _“God_ I hope your theory checks out or I am gonna _kill_ you - ”

Regina raised her eyebrows and decided to stop listening.

“Quite a pair, aren’t they?” muttered Emma.

The other woman laughed once, a vaguely amused sound in that rasped with no small amount of protest from the back of her throat.

“Sorry.”

Regina paused, stopped, and faced Emma squarely, frowning. “What for?”

Emma shrugged, hands burrowing into her pockets in a gesture Regina now recognized as one part evasive and two parts stalling for time as she worked for something adequate to say in response.

Then she rolled her eyes. “Quit the armchair psychology. I can still _hear_ you.”

Regina pursed her lips into a thin, uneven line. “Sorry.”

She was making an honest effort to keep the humor out of her tone and failing. She was grateful when Emma didn’t press the point but forged valiantly onward despite having to veritably drag the words out.

“Sorry it worked, I guess?”

“What? The test?”

“Yeah.” She shifted her weight back, gnawing on the wall of one cheek. “I mean, now you’re at this whole entirely new risk, and - ”

“Emma.”

Emma fell silent.

“First of all, you choose to say this _now?”_ Emma glanced up, startled, but Regina plowed gamely on, “second of all, none of that matters. You were _right.”_

“Uh - wh - um, about what, exactly?”

“I’d rather die fighting.”

Something shifted in Emma’s expression, barely perceptible but for the abiding connection they both shared, something growing lighter and warmer in response. She opened her mouth to say something else, but was cut off by the shrilling of the klaxon.

Regina’s stomach dropped. That particular tone heralded one thing, and one thing only:

The next event.

The next event that was, as Hopper and Whale had repeatedly warned her, would be a triple event.

Forgoing further discussion, Regina marked a hard line through the Shatterdome’s labyrinthine hallways to LOCCENT mission control, Emma hard on her heels. 

“Isn’t this a little ahead of schedule?” she called, but the Marshal said nothing. Each pulse of the alarm lit the halls with a ghostly red, limning the walls with a brilliant bronze cast.

Leroy’s face was pale and wan when they reached mission control, and the expressions on every other maintenance worker they passed didn’t signify much better.

“What’ve you got for me, LOCCENT?” said Regina, brusque and businesslike, without a single deviation from her typical approach. The tactic didn’t seem to be putting anyone at ease. Leroy looked faintly nauseous as he glanced up at her.

“We’ve, um.”

“Give it to me straight,” she said crisply.

“It’s a, uh, it’s a - it’s a triple event, like we predicted.”

_Like we feared._

“Two Category IVs and a, um.” He blanched further. “A Category V.”

Regina nodded. “Anything else?”

“Woah, _what?”_ Emma’s alarm sparked sharply off her as she regarded Regina with swelling horror. “How are you not _losing your shit_ over this?”

“Because we’ll handle it,” Regina snapped. “We have four capable teams, and we’ll _handle_ it. The Breach should be opening, wider than it’s ever been. This is an _opportunity.”_

“Did you not hear the part where there’s a _Category V.”_

Regina didn’t deign to respond to that. In any case, her Rangers were already piling into the cramped space, all wearing identical expressions of startled trepidation. She turned to face them, squaring her shoulders, arms crossed over her chest.

“It’s what we’ve been waiting for. Suit up.”

“That’s, uh, succinct,” said Ruby lightly.

“What did you expect, a novelized report?” said Regina with a prim twist to her voice, _in no mood._ “Triple event. Two Category IVs and a Category V. We’ll get into the specifics _after_ we’re set for deployment. Is that clear?”

“Category _V?”_ breathed Mary, horror flitting briefly over her features.

“We can’t afford to waste time, so we are doing this _now._ Any questions?”

The room was silent but for the discordant howl of the alarms.

“Nice to know nothing with you ever changes, even in a crisis.”

No one needed to turn around to determine the source of that snide little comment, distinct as it was due to the faint Scottish lilt to the words. The admonishing nudge of French’s elbow into his side and his respective flinch did not go unnoticed.

Regina elected to ignore it.

“Do we hold the miracle mile?” asked Humbert, chiming in from the back.

The Marshal shook her head. “Negative.”

“What? But - ”

“We’re taking the opportunity to attack the Breach directly,” she overrode her former officer sharply. “It’ll be opening wider than it ever has before, and this time we have a plan.”

“A _plan?”_

“This is all kind of sudden.”

“Nice of you to _tell us_ this plan beforehand.”

“Care to enlighten us?”

Regina narrowed her eyes, her sense of steely tranquility ironclad. Waves of apprehension were rolling from Emma - to say nothing of the rest of the Rangers, who looked no less visibly unsettled - but Regina held her confidence firm.

Either way, regardless of the outcome, this would all soon be over.

The fact was, unsurprisingly, an incredibly comforting one.

“It is what it is,” said Regina evenly. “We either prepare ourselves to face or accept it lying down. Which will it be?”

It was hardly a question that needed answering. Every face hardened, every jaw tightened. Regina could practically hear the quiet symphony of mental goodbyes and farewells that were always passed around at the beginning of a battle.

There would no fanfare. No more protests, no more cries. The crippling sense of finality blanketed everything so completely that there was nothing more to be said. This would be their final stand or it would be their short-lived cenotaph.

The Rangers filed out in silence, with one exception.

“You’re sure about this?” said Emma, hovering in Regina’s peripheral vision.

Regina simply shook her head.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“‘Course it does.”

“It’s kind of you to think so.” An utterly mirthless smile quirked at the corner of her lips. “But you know me. I’d rather die fighting.”

Emma eyed her skeptically. “I’d rather not die at all.”

An overly optimistic vein of thought. Regina found that she didn’t have the energy to contest it.

Emma raised a hand, palm open, a clear gesture of solidarity.

“We’re really doing this, we do it together.”

Regina met the other woman’s gaze steadily. The symbolism in the act was ultimately meaningless. They might die in mental union, but in the end there was no choice in the matter. They’d drifted. They’d succeeded. They had both agreed to place their lives on the line for humanity’s sake long before now. Whatever comfort Emma might derive from pretending that their partnership was anything but a matter of convenience was purely illusory.

Regina sighed, and said nothing.

With a slap of two palms aligning, Regina clasped Emma’s hand and gripped it tight.

“Together.”


End file.
